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LIIDISFAEI CHASE. 



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THOMAS ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE, 

AUTHOR OF 

“ BEPPO,” “ GIULIO MALATESTA,” “ LA BEATA,” 


) 

o 

) 



NEW YORK; 

D. APPLETON AND CO. 

1866. 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

SiLVERTON AND ITS ENVIRONS 

• 

« 

• 

FAOB 

1 

CHAPTER II. 

At Weston Frury .... 

• 

• 

• 

7 

CHAPTER III. 
The Family in the Close . 

• 

• 

• 

17 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Family at the Chase 

• 

• 

• 

33 

CHAPTER V. 

Margaret’s First Day at Home . 

• 

• 

• 

40 

CHAPTER VI. 
Walter Ellingham .... 

• 

• 

• 

54 

^ CHAPTER VII. 
My “Things.” 

• 

• 

• 

66 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Margaret’s Debut in the Close . 

• 

• 

• 

72 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Party at the Chase . 

• 

• 

• 

87 

CHAPTER X. 

At Dinner, and Afterwards 

• 

• 

• 

98 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XI. 
Mr. Merriton pays some Visits 


• 

• 

PAGE 

114 

CHAPTER XII. 
Fred’s Luncheon at the Chase . 

• 

• 

• 

180 

CHAPTER XIIL 
The Party at the Friary 

9 


• 

140 

CHAPTER XIV. 

* 

The “Nosey Stone” .... 

• 


• 

151 

CHAPTER XV. 
The “Carte de Tenure” . 

• 

• 

• 

164 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Winifred Pendleton .... 

• 


• 

176 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A Hard, Hard Task .... 

f 

a 

• 

186 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Kate’s Attempt at Bribery and Corruption 


• 

197 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Kate’s Ride to Sillmouth . 

• 


• 

205 

CHAPTER XX. 
Deep Creek Cottage .... 

. 

; 

• 

212 

CHAPTER XXI. 

A Good Samaritan .... 

• 

. 

• 

219 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Maiden Meditations not Fancy-Free . 

• 

a 

• 

229 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Sillshire versus Paris 


a 

f 

237 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Lindisurn Stone o • 

♦ 

f 

# 

249 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

Teaks from the Depth op some Divine Despair” 
CHAPTER XXYI. 

Another very good way.” — Mrs. Glasse, ^ passim , 
CHAPTER XXYII. 

“ How SHALL I TELL HeR ? ” 

CHAPTER XXVm. 

The Tete-A-Tete 

• CHAPTER XXIX. 

Speaking to Papa I 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The Lindisfarn Jawbone .... I 
CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Jawbone tells Tales . . . I \ 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Settlements I 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 


Paternal Advice 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 
Diamond cut Diamond 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
Only till To-morrow Night 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 
The Two Sides op the Wall 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 


Op Slowcome and Sligo, and more especially of 
Slowcome 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

A Pair op Attorneys , ♦ . • • i t 


V 

PAGE 

260 

268 

283 

290 

304 

317 

324 

339 

349 

356 

368 

378 

388 

396 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

Mr. Falconer is Alarmed .... 

• 

. 

PAGE 

407 

CHAPTER XL. 

The Tidings reach the Chase . 


• 

413 

CHAPTER XLI. 

In Mr. Sligo’s Gig ..... 

• 


422 

CHAPTER XLII. 

Lady Farnleigh returns to Sillshire 



430 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

Lady Farnleigh catches an Idea 

• 


442 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

Mr. Slowcome goes to Sillmouth, and takes 
BY his Motion . . - . 

nothing 

454 

CHAPTER XLV. 

The Fairy Godmother at her Spells. 

• 

• 

462 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

The Fairy in her Wicked Mood 

• 


473 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

At the Lindisfarn Stone once more 

• 


480 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

Mr. Mat commits Sacrilege and Felony . 

• 

• 

488 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

Mr. Slowcome comes out rather Strong . 

• 

• 

505 

CHAPTER L. 

Arcades Ambo ! — Conclusion 

t 

t 

513 


LINDISFAEN CHASE 


lart jFirst. 


CHAPTER I. 

SILVERTON AND ITS ENVIRONS. ^ ' 

I DOUBT much, whether I could invent a fiction, that should 
be more interesting to my readers, than the authentic bit 
of family history I am about to offer them. The facts hap- 
pened, and the actors in them were, with very little dif- 
ference, such as they will be represented in the following pages. 
But although nearly half a century has passed since the cir- 
cumstances occurred, it has been necessary, in order to justify 
the publication of them, to make such changes in names and 
localities, as should obviate the possibility of causing annoyance 
or offence to individuals still living. The episcopal city in, and 
in the neighbourhood of which, the events really took place, 
shall therefore be called Silverton ; and it shall be placed in 
one of our south- westernmost counties, where no search among 
the county families will, it may be safely asserted, enable 
any too curious reader to identify the real personages of the 
history. 

The ancient and episcopal city of Silverton is one of the 

1 


2 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


most beautifally situated towns in England. Seated in the 
midst of a wide valley on the banks of a river, which about a 
mile below the town becomes tidal, and three miles further 
reaches the sea, its environs comprise almost every variety of 
English scenery. The flat bottom of the valley is occupied 
with watermeads, rendered passable to those acquainted with 
the locality and impassable to strangers, by a labyrinthine 
system of streams and paths, diversified by an inflnity of sluices, 
miniature locks, and bridges removable at pleasure after the 
fashion of drawbridges. The town itself, with the exception 
of the physically and morally low parts of it lying immediately 
in the vicinity of the bridge over the river Sill, is built on a 
slight elevation sufficient to raise it above the damp level of the 
water-meadows. The highest point of this eminence was once 
entirely occupied by the extensive buildings of Silverton Castle. 
hTow the picturesque ivy-grown keep only remains; and the 
rest of the space backed by the high city wall, which on that 
side of the city has been preserved, forms the admirably kept 
and much admired garden of Robert Falconer, Esq., the senior 
partner of the firm of Falconer and Fishbourne, the wealthy, 
long-established, and much respected bankers of Silverton. 

On ground immediately below the site of the old castle, and 
sufficiently lower for the two buildings to group most admirably 
together, stands the grand old Cathedral, with its two massive 
towers, one at either angle of the west front, which looks towards 
the declivity and the valley. The space between the Cathedral 
and the site of the castle, is occupied by that inmost sanctuary 
and privileged spot of a cathedral city, the Close. The old city 
is not in any part of it a noisy one. For though it was 
formerly the seat of a prosperous cloth trade and manufacture, 
commerce and industry have long since deserted it, preferring 
for their modern requirements, coal-measures to water-meadows. 
But a still deeper quietude broods over the Close. The beauti- 
fully kept gravel walk — it is more like a garden- walk than a 
road — which wanders among exquisitely shaven lawns, from 
one rose-covered porch to another of the irregularly placed 
prebendal houses, is rarely cut up by wheels. The Deanery 
gardens, and those of two or three other of the prebendal 
residences run up to a remaining fragment of the old city wall 
to the right hand of the castle keep, as those of Mr. Falconer 
the banker do on the left-hand side of the ancient tower, sup- 
posing the person looking at them to stand facing the west 
front of the Cathedral, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


3 


It is a pleasant spot to stand on, and a pleasant view to face ; 
— it was so forty years ago, and I suppose it still is so, despite 
the cutting down of canonries, and other ravages of the 
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. If one stood not quite opposite 
the centre of the west front of the church, but sufficiently to 
the left of that point to catch a view of the southern side 
of the long nave, and the southern transept with its round- 
headed Saxon windows and arches, — for that part of the build- 
ing belonged to an earlier period than the nave ; — of the 
mouldering and ivy-grown, but still sturdy looking and lofty 
keep of the old castle on the higher ground behind ; — of the 
fragments of city wall to the right and left, covered with the 
roses and other creeping plants of the banker’s garden on the 
one side, and of those of the cathedral dignitaries on the other ; 
— of the noble woods of Lindisfarn Chase on the gentle swell 
of the hill, which shut in the horizon in that direction at a 
distance of some seven or eight miles from the city ; and of 
the sleepy quiet Close in the immediate foreground, with its 
low-roofed, but substantial, roomy, and exceedingly comfortable, 
grey stone houses, showing, with so admirably picturesque an 
effect, on the brilliant green of the shaven lawns, which run 
close up to the walls of them ; — if one stood, I say, so as to 
command this prospect, one would be apt to linger there 
awhile. 

Suppose the hour to be ten a.m. on a September morning. 
The last bell is ringing for morning service. Dr. Lindisfarn, 
in surplice, hood, and trencher-cap, is placidly sauntering across 
the Close from his house, next to the Deanery, with a step that 
seems regulated by the chime of the bell, to take his place as 
canon in residence at the morning service. Dr. Theophilus 
Lindisfarn, Senior Canon, is literally, if not ecclesiastically 
speaking, always in residence. For he loves Silverton Close 
better than any other spot of earth’s surface ; and keeps a 
curate on his living of Chewton-in-the-Moor, some fifteen miles 
from the city. Dr. Lindisfarn, stepping across to morning 
service, pauses an instant, as he observes with a slight frown 
an insolently tall dandelion growing in the Close lawn ; and 
makes a mem. in his mind to tell the gardener that the Chapter 
cannot tolerate such slovenly gardening. A little troop of 
choristers in surplices and untasselled trencher-caps, headed by 
old Peter Glenny the organist, are coming round the northern 
corner of the west front from the school-room. The Pev. Mr. 
Thorburn, the Minor Canon, who has to chant the service, is 
1 2 


4 


LINDISFAEN CHASE, 


not yet in sight ; for he was officiating as president of a glee 
club till not the smallest of the small hours last night ; and 
being rathei? late this morning is now coming up the hill from 
the lower part of the town, at a speed which will just suffice to 
bring him to his place in the choir in time to dash off with 
‘‘ Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord,” at the 
exact instant that the bell sounds its last note, and Dr. Lindis- 
farn at the same moment raises his benignant face from the 
trencher-cap in which he has for a moment hidden it, on enter- 
ing his stall, moving as he did so with a sort of suant, 
mechanical, yet not ungraceful action, which seemed to combine 
a bow to the assembled congregation, with a meditative prayer 
condensed into the briefest possible time. The rooks are 
cawing their morning service the while in the high trees behind 
Mr. Falconer’s house, a large mansion more modern and less 
picturesque than the Canons’ houses, a little behind and to the 
left of the spot where I have supposed the contemplator of this 
peaceful scene to take his stand. The morning sun is gilding 
and lighting up the distant Lindisfarn woods ; a white mist is 
lying on the water-meads ; and a gentle drowsy hum ascending 
from the lower districts of the city. The sights and sounds 
that caress the eye and ear, are all suggestive of peacefulness 
and beauty ; and are poetized by a flavour of association which 
imparts an inflnite charm to the scene. 

And there were no heretic Bishops or free- thinking Pro- 
fessors in those days, throughout all the land. There was no 
Broad Church ; and ‘‘ earnestness” had not been invented. It 
was a mighty pleasant time ; at least, it was so inside Cathe- 
dral Closes. Dissenters were comparatively few anywhere, and 
especially in such places as Silver ton. They were understood 
to be low and noxious persons, with greasy faces and lank hair, 
who, in a general way, preferred evil to good. It was said 
that there were some few of these Pariahs in the low part of 
the town ; and even that they met for their unhallowed worship 
in some back lane, under the ministry of a much persecuted 
and almost outlawed shoemaker. But of course, none of these 
persons ever ventured to sully the purity of the Close with 
their presence. The heresiarch cobbler felt himself to be guilty, 
and slunk by like a whipped hound, if he met any one of the 
cathedral dignitaries in the street. The latter of course 
ignored the existence of any such obscure and hateful sectarians ; 
although it was said that more than one denizen of the Close 
had been known to listen, though under protest, to a story that 


LINDISFAM CHASE). 


5 


Peter Glenny had of a scapegrace nephew of his having once 
entered the conventicle in the lower town, and having then 
found the impious wretches singing hymns to a hornpipe tune ! 

The base creatures, who were guilty of such enormities, 
were too few and too obscure to cause any trouble or scandal 
in the dignified Church-loving Silverton Society. If a Bishop 
did endow a favourite son or son-in-law with an accumulation 
of somewhat incompatible preferments, if a reverend Canon 
did absent himself for a year or two together from Silverton, 
or hold preferment with his canonry not strictly tenable with it, 
leave some of the little churches in the city unserved some 
Sunday evening, because he was engaged to a dinner-party in 
the country, or indulge in a habit of playing whist deep into 
Sunday morning ; or if a Minor Canon were found hearing the 
chimes at midnight elsewhere than in his study or his bed, or 
did chance to get into trouble about sporting without a licence, 
or did stroll into his country church to take some odds or ends 
of surplice duty in his shooting gaiters, while he left his dog 
and gun in the vestry, — why there was no “ chiel amang them” 
to take invidious note of these things, much less to dream of 
printing them! In short, the time of which I have been 
speaking, and am about to speak, was that good old time, which 
nous autres who are sur la retour remember so well ; and which 
was so pleasant, that it is quite sad to think that it should have 
been found out to be so naughty ! 

It would seem nevertheless that there had been still better 
times at a yet more remote period. For there were, even forty 
years ago, individuals in the Silverton world, who looked with 
regret at the march of progress, which had even then com- 
menced. And old Dennis Wyvill the verger, who was upwards 
of eighty years old, used to complain much of a new-fangled 
order of the Chapter that the litany should be chanted, declaring 
that in good Bane Burder’s days morning service was over, and 
all said, and the door locked afore eleven o’clock. But thus 
it is 1 ‘‘ JEtas pare7itum,’^ says the poet in the same mind with 
old Dennis Wyvill the verger, “ JEtas jparentmn pejor avis tulit 
nos nequioreSj niox daturos progeniein vitiosiorem.^^ 

The progress of time has not quite spared either, the 
material beauty of Silverton or its environs. One or two rows 
of “semi-detached villa residences,” have made their appear- 
ance in different parts of the outskirts of the city, which, how- 
ever charming they may be as residences to the dwellers in 
them, do not add to the beauty of the place. One of these 


6 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


more especially has caused the destruction of a clump of elm 
trees, which formerly stood near the spot where the fragment 
of city wall that bounds Mr. Falconer’s garden, — or rather, that 
which was his at the date of this history — comes to an end, 
and which filled most charmingly to the eye the break in the 
landscape between that object and the grass green water-meads 
below ; and has thus done irreparable injury to dear old Silver- 
ton. For the rest, the city and its surrounding country are 
much as they used to be. The woods of Lindisfarn Chase 
beyond, and as one may say, behind the town, supposing it to 
face towards the valley of the Sill, are as rich in verdure and 
as beautiful as ever. The less thickly, but still well wooded 
park-like scenery of Wanstrow Manor, the residence forty years 
ago, of the Dowager Lady Farnleigh, is unchanged on the 
more gradually rising opposite bank of the river. The quaintly 
picturesque view of the water-meadows up the stream, closed 
at the turn of it westwards about two miles above Silverton 
bridge by the village and village church of Weston Friary, is 
unaltered. In the opposite direction below the bridge, the 
population has somewhat increased ; and the houses, most of 
them of a poor description, are more numerous than of yore. 
And the new cottages, although somewhat more fitted for 
decent human habitation than the old ones, are less picturesque. 
Modern squalor and poverty are especially unsightly. It is as 
if the ill qualities of the old and the new had been selected 
and combined to the exclusion of the redeeming qualities of 
either. 

Further from the city the aspect of the country is naturally 
still more unchanged. The rich and brilliantly green meadows 
and pasture lands in the lower grounds ; the coppice-circled 
fields of tillage of the upland farms, the red soil of which con- 
trasts so beautifully with the greenery of the woodlands ; the 
gradually increasing wildness and unevenness of the country, 
as it recedes from the valley of the Sill, and approaches the 
higher ground of Lindisfarn Chase on the Silverton side of the 
stream ; and the curiously sudden and definitely marked line, 
which separates the Wanstrow Manor farms from the wide 
extent of moorland which stretches away, many a mile to the 
northwards and along the coast, on the opposite or left-hand 
side of the little river ; all this, of course, is as it was. And it 
was, and is, very beautiful. 


tlNDlSFAHN CHASll. 


7 


CHAPTER II. 

AT WESTON FEIARY. 

There were two roads open to the choice of anyone wishing 
to go from Wanstrow Manor to Lindisfarn Chase. The most 
direct crossed the Sill by Silverton Bridge and passed through 
that city. The distance by this road was little more than eight 
miles. But the pleasanter way either for riding or walking 
was to cross the river at Weston Eriary, and thus avoiding the 
city altogether, and reaching the wilder and more open district 
of the Chase, almost immediately after quitting the valley at 
Weston, so as to make the greatest part of the distance by the 
green lanes, and unenclosed commons which at that point occu- 
pied most of the space between the lowlands of the valley and 
Lindisfarn woods. The distance by this route was a good ten 
miles, however. The highest part of the ground of the Chase, 
which shut in the horizon to the westward behind Silverton, 
has been mentioned as being about seven or eight miles from 
the city. But the fine old house, which took its name from the 
Chase, was not so far. Hor was it visible from the town. A 
little brawling stream called Lindisfarn brook, ran hiding itself 
at the bottom of a narrow ravine between Silverton and the 
Lindisfarn woods ; and fell into the Sill a mile or two above 
Weston Friary. This little valley and its brook were about 
three miles from the city, and four or five from the wood-covered 
summit above mentioned. The ground fell from this latter in 
a gentle slope all the way down to the brook, with the excep- 
tion of the last two or three hundred feet, the sudden and 
almost precipitous dip of which, gave the valley the character 
of a ravine. The house was situated about half way down this 
gentle declivity, about two and a half miles from the top, that 
is, and as much from the brook, which was crossed by a 
charming little ivy-grown bridge high above the stream, carry- 
ing the Carriage road from Silverton to Lindisfarn. The same 
little brook had to be crossed by those who took the longer 
way from Wanstrow, and by those who came from Weston 
Friary to the Chase ; and for foot passengers, there was a plank 
and rail across the stream. Those travelling this route on 
horseback, however, had to ford the Lindisl'arn brook j and in 


8 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


sloppy weather the banks were apt to be very soft and rotten, 
insomuch that many a pound of mud from the Lindisfarn brook 
ford had been brushed from bedraggled riding habits in the 
servants’ halls of the Chase and the Manor. For the inter- 
course between these two mansions was very frequent, and the 
ride by Weston Friary, as* has been said, was, especially to 
practised riders, the pleasantest. 

Indeed, for those who like open country, and have no objec- 
tion to a little mud and a moderate jump or two, there could 
not be a better country for a ride than all this part of the Lin- 
disfarn Chase property. In the driest weather the turf of the 
lanes and commons was rarely too hard, but in wet weather it 
was certainly somewhat too soft. This was most the case on 
the Weston Friary side of the Lindisfarn brook. On the other 
side the ground rose towards the Chase more rapidly, and as 
the higher land was reached, became naturally drier. But 
though there was a slight rise from the ford on the other side, 
sufficient to cause the brook to seek its way into the river Sill 
a mile or two further up the stream instead of falling into it at 
the village of Weston, this elevation of the ground between the 
valley of Lindisfarn brook and the water-mead around the 
village, was not sufficient at that point to prevent all the inter- 
vening land from being of a very wet and soft description. If 
I have succeeded in making the topography of the environs of 
Silverton at all cjear to the reader, it will be understood, that 
this same swell of the ground, which between Weston and the ford 
over the brook of Lindisfarn was a mere tongue of marshy soil, 
rose gradually but rather rapidly in the direction down the Sill, 
till it formed the comparatively high ground, on which Silver- 
ton was built, and from which the Lindisfarn woods could be 
seen on the opposite of the valley of the brook, which had there 
become a deep ravine, as has been described. A good country 
road, coming from the interior of the country along the valley 
of the Sill, passed through the village of Weston Friary on its 
course to Silverton, finding its way along the edge of the water- 
meadows, and making in that direction also a singularly pretty 
ride. This road having crossed the mouth of the brook by a 
bridge called Paulton’s bridge, nearly two miles above Weston, 
held its way along the tongue of low land which has been 
described, keeping close to the bank of the river. Just above 
Weston, this space between the two streams was not above half 
a mile in width, and it was all open common, divided off from 
the road, however, at that point, by a low timber fence, con- 


LINDISFAM CHASE. 


9 


sisting of two rails only, which, traced at a period when such 
land was of small value, left a wide margin of turf along the 
road side. 

About the same hour of that same beautiful September 
morning, at which the reader has had a glimpse of Dr. Lindis- 
farn, on his way to morning service at the Cathedral, — a little 
later perhaps ; but even if it had still been Bane Burder’s time, 
the service could not be yet over ; an old labourer paused in 
his loitering walk along the road towards Silver ton, to look 
at two ladies on horseb^ack coming at full gallop across the 
common, followed at some little distance by a groom. 

“Now for a jump ! ’’ said the old man as he stood to look; 
“ there ben’t another in all the country has such a seat on a 
horse as my lady have ! And Miss Kate she’s just such 
another.” 

And as he spoke, the two ladies came lightly over the low 
rail on to the turf by the road side, the younger of the two 
giving a playful imitation of a view halloo, as she cleared her 
fence, in a voice whose silver notes were musical as the tones 
from a flute. 

Lady Farnleigh of Wanstrow Manor, gentle reader, and 
Miss Kate Lindisfarn, daughter of Oliver Lindisfarn, Esq., of 
the Chase. 

The fence was not much of a jump ; and the whole appear- 
ance of the ladies betokened that they were accustomed to 
much severer feats of horsemanship than that. It was a soft 
morning, and though the Lindisfarn woods above were glisten- 
ing in the sunshine, and the old castle keep, and the towers of 
the cathedral at Silverton were clearly defined in the bright air, 
the mist, as has been said, was still lying in the valley, and 
glistening drops of the moisture had gathered on the brims 
and on the somewhat bedraggled feathers of the ladies’ low- 
crowned beaver hats, and on the curls of hair, which hung in 
slightly dishevelled disarray around their necks. They bore 
about them, too, still more decided marks of hard riding. 
Their habits were splashed with mud up to their shoulders, and 
the lower parts of them were evidently the worse for the 
passage of Lindisfarn brook ford. Their whole appearance 
was such, in short, that had a malicious fairy dropped them 
just as they were into the midst of the ride in Hyde Park, they 
would have wished the earth to open and swallow them up. 
Yet many a fair frequenter of that matchless show of horse- 
women, would, more judiciously, have given anything to look 


10 


iilNDISFARN CHASE. 


exactly, age for age, like either lady. They were both beauti- 
ful women, though the elder was the mother of a peer, who 
had just taken his seat in the House. In fact, the Dowager 
Lady Farnleigh was only in her forty-fourth year. Her com- 
panion was twenty-six years younger. But both were in face 
and figure eminently beautiful, and did not look less so for the 
glow which their exercise had called into their cheeks, and 
the sparkle in their eyes from the excitement of their gallop. 
Both sat their horses to perfection, as the old man had said ; 
and both were admirably well mounted ; — Lady Farnleigh on 
a magnificent bay, and Kate on a somewhat smaller and 
slighter black ; as indeed they needed to be for the work they 
had been engaged in. Their horses were splashed from fetlock 
to shoulder, and from nose to crupper ; and the gallop up the 
rise from the ford, and over the deep turf of the soft common, 
made their flanks heave as their riders pulled up in the road ; 
and the breath from their mobile nostrils was condensed into 
little clouds just a shade darker than the white mist that lay 
on the water-meads. But the eyes in their pretty thorough- 
bred heads were as bright as those of their mistresses ; and as 
they turned their heads and erect ears up the road and down 
the road, as if inquiring for further orders, they seemed rather 
anxious to be oflT again, than distressed by what they had 
already done. 

“ Why Kate ! ” cried Lady Farnleigh, in a clear, ringing, 
cheery voice, that would have been good to any amount as a 
draft for sympathy on anyone within earshot, “ Why Kate, as 
I am a sinner, if there is not Freddy Falconer coming along 
the road on his cob, looking for all the world, of course, as if 
he had been just taken out of the bandbox in which the London 
tailor had sent him down for the enlightenment of us natives ! 
Shall we run, Kate, like naughty girls as we are; — shall we 
show our Silverton arbiter eleg anti arum a clean pair of heels ; 
or boldly stay and abide the ordeal ? ’’ 

Oh, I vote for standing our ground,’’ answered Kate ; ‘‘ I 
see no reason for running away ! ” she added laughing, but 
with a somewhat heightened colour in her cheek. 

“To be sure ! What is Freddy Falconer to you, or you to 
Freddy Falconer ! Them’s your sentiments, as old Gafier Miles 
says, eh Kate ? Who’s afraid ? I am sure I am not ! ” replied 
Lady Farnleigh, looking half jestingly, half observantly, into 
her god-daughter’s face ; — for she stood in that relationship to 
Miss Lindisfarn. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


11 


Kate laughed, and shook her pretty head, putting up a little 
slender hand in its neatly fitted gauntlet, as she did so, to make 
a little unavowed attempt at restoring her hair to some small 
appearance of order. 

In another minute the rider, whom Lady Farnleigh had 
observed in the road, coming up at a walk, reached the spot 
where the ladies were. 

He was a young man of some twenty-seven years of age. 
It was impossible to deny — even Lady Farnleigh could not 
have denied — that Nature had done her part to qualify him for 
becoming the arhiter elegantiarum^ she had sneeringly called 
him. He was indeed remarkably handsome; fair in com- 
plexion, with perhaj)s a too delicate and unbronzed pink cheek 
for a man ; plenty of light brown, crisp, curling hair ; no 
moustache or beard, and closely trimmed whiskers; (’twas 
forty years ago ;) large light blue eyes, a well formed mouth, 
the lips of which, however, were rather thin, and lacked a little 
of that colour in which his cheek was so rich ; and a tall, well- 
proportioned figure ;— a strikingly handsome man, unquestion- 
ably. 

Nor had Fortune been behindhand in contributing her share 
to the perfect production in question. For Mr. Frederick 
Falconer was the only son and heir of the wealthy and prosper- 
ous banker, the senior partner of the old established and much 
respected firm of Falconer and Fishbourne of Silverton. And 
as for Art, her contributions to the joint product had been 
unstinted, and in her best possible style. Every portion of 
the costume, appointments, and equipments of Mr. Frederick 
Falconer and his horse, from the top of the well-brushed beaver 
to the tip of the well-polished and faultless boot of the biped, 
and from the artistically groomed tail to the shining curb-chain 
of the quadruped, were absolutely perfect; and fully justified 
the anticipatory commendation that Lady Farnleigh had be- 
stowed upon them. And in addition to all this, it may be said, 
that Falconer was an almost universal favourite in the Silver- 
ton society — in the “very best” Silverton society, of course. 
The young men did not admire him quite so much as the young 
ladies. But this was natural enough. Both sexes, however, 
of the old, professed an equally favourable opinion of him. 
He was held to be a good son, as attentive to his father’s busi- 
ness as could well be expected under the circumstances, a well- 
conducted and steady young man, and by pretty well all the 
Silverton matronocracy a decidedly desirable 


12 


LINDISFARN CHABE. 


(How naturally we Anglo-Saxon folks speak Frenck when- 
ever we have anything to say of which we are at all ashamed ; 
or any lie to tell !) 

“ Good morning, Lady Farnleigh ! Good morning, Miss 
Lindisfarn ! ” he said, saluting the ladies with easy grace, as 
he came up to them ; “ You are not only riding early this 
morning, but you have been riding some time earlier ; for I see 
you have crossed Lindisfarn brook ! ” 

Both ladies gave a nod in return for his salutation. Lady 
Farnleigh, not a distant or supercilious, but rather a dry one 
(if a nod can be said to be dry, as I think it may — ) and 
Kate a good-natured one, accompanied by a good-humoured 
smile. 

“ You have been riding early too, which is paying this misty 
morning a much higher compliment ! ” returned Lady Farn- 
leigh, “for you are already returning to Silverton.’’ 

“ Yes ! I have been to Churton Bassett already this morn- 
ing. My father wanted a letter taken to Quorn and Prideaux 
there before they opened for the day. Some business of the 
bank.” 

“ Well ; our ride is not so near its end as yours. We are 
going up to the Chase again, as soon as I have visited an 
old friend of mine in the village here. Will you ride over 
the common with us ? Come up to the Chase ; and Miss 
Imogene shall give you some luncheon. And you may ride 
over with me back again to Wanstrow in the afternoon, if you 
like.” 

And Kate bowed her backing of the invitation, with a smile 
that made Mr. Frederick feel a strong inclination to accept it ; 
although, in fact, Kate had intended only to be courteous, 
and by no means wished to be, on this occasion, taken at 
her word, or rather at her bow and her smile ; for she had not 
spoken. 

It was true that Fred had Messrs. Quorn and Prideaux’s 
answer to his father’s letter in his pocket ; but he had no reason 
to think that it mattered much whether it reached its destina- 
tion a few hours sooner or later. And in truth it was the 
consideration of the nature of the ride proposed t© him, rather 
than any anxiety about the letter, that made him plead the 
necessity of returning to Silverton as an excuse for not accept- 
ing the proposal. 

“ Well, good day then ! You are a pearl of a messenger ! 
Give my compliments to your father; and oh! Mr. Falconer! 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


13 


there is a lot of mud in the road by the lock yonder ! Take 
care you do not splash yourself! Good-bye. 

He under/stood the sneer well enough ; and would have been 
riled at it, if Kate had not administered an antidote to the 
acerbity of her godmother’s tongue, by giving him a parting 
nod and a “ good-bye, Mr. Falconer,” in which there was no 
acerbity at all. 

Nevertheless, as the young man rode off towards the city, 
and the ladies turned their horses’ heads to enter the village of 
Weston Friary, Kate said, addressing her companion : — 

“How could you think of inviting him up to the Chase 
to-day ? As if we had not enough to think of, without having 
strangers on our hands ! ” 

“Don’t be a goose, Kate!” answered the elder lady. “Do 
you think I imagined that there was the slightest chance of 
Master Freddy consenting to ride over Lindisfarn common with 
you and me? Catch him at it! But at what time do you 
think your sister may arrive ? ” 

“ We have calculated that she may be at the Chase by two. 
I wanted to meet her in Silverton, but papa thought it best that 
we should all receive her together at home. We must take 
care to be back at the Chase by that time. I would not be out 
when she comes for the world ! ” 

“ Oh ! no fear ! I’ve only to say half a dozen words to old 
Granny Wilkins, poor thing, in Weston here, and then we’ll 
go up to the Chase best pace. We sha’n’t be long, since wo 
have not Master Freddy at our heels.” 

“Why, what a spite you have, Godmamma, against poor 
Mr. Falconer ! What has he done to offend you ? ” 

“ Nothing in the world, my dear ! And I have not the 
slightest idea of being offended with him. It is true I 
don’t like him quite so much as all the Silverton young ladies 
do!” 

“ T don’t think you like him at all ! Why don’t you ? ” asked 
Kate with a blunt, straightforward frankness that was peculiar 
to her. 

“ Well, I don’t like him at all, that’s the truth ! But you 
know the old rhyme, Kate ! ‘I do not like you. Dr. Fell !’ 
i&c., &c. Upon second thoughts, however, I think I can tell 

why I don’t like Freddy Falconer. He is a regular ” 

“ Oh, not a snob, as you said of that superfine Captain 
Marnisty, the other day. I don’t think Mr. Falconer is a 
snob ! ” 


14 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


No, I was not going to say a snob. Why should you fancy 
I was ? ” 

“ Only because when you called Captain Marnisty so, you said 
^ a regular snob,’ just in the same sort of way.” 

“Well, this time I am going to say a regular something 
else. No ! it would not be fair — or true, to say that Fred 
Falconer is a snob. . But I can put what he is into four letters 
too ! ” 

“ Not a fool ! ” expostulated Kate. 

“ No, that’s not quite it, either ; though I have known wiser 
men than Fred. Try again ! ” 

“ Dandy, has five letters,” said Kate, meditatively. 

“ Yes, and so has scamp ! and I do not mean to call Mr. 
Falconer either. No, if I must tell you, it is p — r — i — g. 
Freddy Falconer is a regular prig ! And I am not fond of 
prigs. But Heaven help us all ! there are worse things than 
prigs in the world; and I have nothing to say against the 
man. Only,” she added after a pause, “ to make a clean 
breast of it, Kate, I have fancied lately that I have seen 
symptoms of his Sultanship having taken it into his head 
to throw the handkerchief in the direction of Lindisfarn 
Chase ” 

“ I am sure he never thought of such a thing ! ” said Kate, 
with a little toss and a great blush. 

“So much the better! In that case Freddy and I shall 
remain very good friends. He may make love to every other 
girl in the county for aught I care. But if he meddles with 
my Kate, gare la marmine! that’s all I Will you come in with 
me to see old Granny Wilkins, dear ; or sit on your horse till I 
have done ? I sha’n’t be a minute.” 

“ No, no ! let me come in with you. Granny Wilkins is an 
old acquaintance of mine.” So the groom helped both the 
ladies to dismount at the door of the cottage : and it was 
evident from the unsurprised manner in which th,e paralytic 
old inhabitant of it received her visitors, that they were neither 
of them strangers to her. 

The business with Dame Wilkins was soon dispatched, as 
Lady Farnleigh had said that it would be. It consisted only 
of the administration of one or two little articles of creature 
comfort, a trifle of money, and a few of those kind words, 
more valuable than any of these, when spoken by the gentle 
and wealthy to the poor and simple, with that tact and hearti- 
ness which are both natarally inspired by genuine sympathy, 


LINDISPARN CHASE. 


15 


but which are as naturally, and with fatal result, wanting to 
those charitable ministrations, performed as a matter of duty, 
according to cut and dry rules, even though those rules should 
have been adjusted in accordance with the most approved 
maxims of modern social science. 

The fact is, that there is just the difference between the two 
things, that there is between the workmanship of some old 
cinqiie-cento artist, and the product of a Birmingham steam 
factory. There is much in favour of the latter. Millions of 
the required article are turned out of hand instead of units. 
There is infinitely less loss of material. The article produced 
is according to every mechanical test, even better than the 
handiwork of the old artist. It is more accurate, its rounds 
are absolutely round, its angles true angles ; each individual 
article of the gross turned out per hour is exactly the same as 
every other, and all are adapted with scientific forethought to 
the exact requirements they are intended to serve. But the 
old handicraftsman impressed his individuality on the work of 
his hands,— ^put his whole soul into it, as we say, more literally 
than we dften think, as we use the phrase. What is the dif- 
ference between this old sixteenth century anything 

inkstand, lady’s needle-ca^e or what not, and the article 
imitated from it by our mechanical science ? I am not artist 
enough to say what the difference is ; but I see it and feel it 
readily enough. And so does everybody else. And the 
market value of the ancient artist’s piece shall be as a thousand 
to one to that of the modern imitation of it. And I know 
that this subtle difference, and this superior value is due to 
that presence of the workman’s soul, which the best possible 
steam-engine, (having up to the date of the latest improvement, 
no soul) cannot impart to its products. 

The best possible mechanism, whether applied by dynamic 
science to the shaping and chasing* of metal, or by social 
science to the cheering of poverty and the relief of suffering, 
must not be expected to do the work of individually applied 
sympathy, heart and soul. But modern civilization needs 
beautiful inkstands in millions ; and the masses of modern 
population need ministrations only to be applied by organized 
social machinery. Very true! Only do not let us suppose, 
that we get the same thing, or a thing nearly as precious. 
Maybe we get the best we can. But the human brain-directed 
hand must come in contact with the material, to produce the 
higher order of artistic beauty, And individual human sym- 


16 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


pafcliy, unclogged by rules, must bring one human heart into 
absolute contact with another, before the best kind of “relief” 
can be attained. 

Dame Wilkins, however, was the fortunate possessor of the 
real artistic article, in the kind visits of Lady Farnleigh. But 
the few kind words, which were treasured and repeated, and 
prized, did not take long in saying ; and the two ladies, in a 
very few minutes, were mounting their horses again. Miss 
Lindisfarn was already in the saddle ; and Lady Farnleigh 
was about to mount, when the groom said in an under voice, 
“ Please, my Lady, the tobacco ! ” 

“ To be sure ! what a brute I am to have forgotten it ! give 
me the packet, Giles.” She took the little parcel Giles pro- 
duced from his pocket, and returning into the cottage said, 
“ Here, Granny ! If it had not been for Giles, I should have 
forgotten the best of my treat. Here’s half a pound of baccy 
to comfort you as the cold nights come on.” 

“ Oh ! my Lady ! That is the best ! You knows how to 
comfort a poor old body as has lost the use of her precious 
limbs. Thank you, my Lady, and God bless you ! ” said the old 
woman, as a gleam of pleasure came into her watery old eyes 
at the thought of the gratification contained in that small 
packet. 

“ I say, Godmamma dear,” said Kate after a pause, as they 
were riding at a sober pace through the village, “ do you think 
it is right to give the poor people tobacco? I have often heard 
Uncle Theophilus say, that the habit of smoking is, next to 
drinking, the worst thing for the labouring classes ; — that it 
promotes bad company, encourages idleness, and very often 
leads to drunkenness.” 

“Uncle Theophilus may go to Jericho! I am of another 
parish ; and don’t like his doctrine I Tell him from me, Kate, 
the next time he preaches on that text, that the labouring 
classes are of opinion 'that there is nothing worse for their 
superiors than the habit of drinking port wine ; that it makes 
the temper crusty, promotes red noses, and very often leads to 
the gout ! ” 

“ Ha, ha, ha, ha ! ” laughed Kate, in silvery notes, that made 
the little village street musical ; “ depend upon it, I will give 
him your message word for word.” 

And then after a sharp gallop over the common, they crossed 
the ford again, not without carrying away with them some 
additional specimen of the soil of its banks and bottom, and 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


17 


thence made the best of their way, first over the broken open 
ground which intervened between the brook and the Lindisfarn 
woods, and then through the leafy lanes which crossed them, 
gradually reaching the higher ground, till they came out on the 
carriage road from Silverton to the Chase, a little below the 
Lodge gates. 

Here Lady Farnleigh turned her horse’s head to return to 
Wanstrow by the road through Silverton, leaving Kate to ride 
up to the house alone. 

“ Good-bye, darling ! ” she said ; “ I won’t come in. I know 
how anxious you must all be. But remember that I shall be 
anxious also to hear all about the new sister ; and ride over the 
day after to-morrow at furthest ; there’s a dear. Love to 
them all ! ” . 

And Kate cantered up the avenue to join the other members 
of the family, who were not without some little nervous 
expectation, awaiting the arrival of a daughter of the 
house, whom none of them had seen for the last fifteen 
years. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE FAMILY IN THE CLOSE. 

Lindisfarn house is a noble old mansion almost entirely of 
the Elizabethan period, with stately, stiff, and trim gardens 
behind it, embosomed in woods behind and around them, with 
larger and more modern gardens on one side of it, and a wide 
open gravel drive, and a piece of tree-dotted park-like pasture 
land in front of the house ; — beyond which it looks down over 
the wooded slope descending to the Lindisfarn brook, and 
across it to the cultivated side of the hill on the other 
side of the top of which stands Silverton. The city is 
not seen from the house. But the old castle keep is 
just visible as an object on the edge of the not distant 
horizon. 

It is so charming an old house, so full of character, so 

2 


18 


lindisMn chase. 


homogeneously expressive in all its pai^s and all its sur- 
roundings, and every detail of it and the scenery around it so 
vividly impressed on my remembrance, that it is a great 
temptation to try my power of word-painting by attempting a 
minute description of the place. But conscious of having often 
“skipped^’ similar descriptions written by others, I do as I 
would be done by, and refrain. After all, the associations to 
be found in each reader’s memory and reminiscences have 
to be called on to supplement the most ordinary of such 
descriptions. How can I cause to echo in the memory- 
chambers of another’s brain as they are echoing in mine, 
the morning concert of the rooks in the humid autumn 
morning air, or in the dreamy quietude of the sunset hour, 
— the barking of the dogs, and the cheery ringing tones of old 
Oliver Lindisfarn’s voice, which seemed never to condescend to 
a lower note than that adapted to a “ Yoicks ! forward ! hark 
forward ! ” and which, as it used to echo through the great 
hall, or make the windows of the wainscoted parlours ring 
again, seemed to harmonize so perfectly and pleasantly with 
the other sounds ! Why, I swear, that even the cry of the 
peacock seems melodious as it comes wafted across forty 
years of memory! And as for Kate’s silver-toned laugh on 
the terrace in front of the house, as she played with old Bayard 
the great rough mastifp, or enticed her bonny black mare 
Birdie, to follow her up and down for lumps of sugar purloined 
out of Imogene’s breakfast basin ; Ah me ! the old Lindisfarn 

rooks will never hear that again 1 Kor shall I that, or 

any other like it ! And dear old Miss Immy, as she loved to 
be called, with her little crisp white cap set on the top of her 
light crisp silver- white curls, three each side of her head, and 
her round withered red-apple like cheeks and her bolt-upright 
little figure and her pit-a-pat high-heeled shoes, and her stiff 
rustling lavender-coloured silk gown, which seemed to go across 
the floor when she moved, like some Dutch toy moved by clock- 
work, and her basket of keys, and her volume of “Clarissa 
Harlow e.” Accidents, many of these things may seem to be ; 
but they were properties of dear old Miss Immy. For they 
never changed, neither the snow-white cap, nor the lavender- 
coloured gown, nor the volume of “ Clarissa Harlowe.” She 
really did read it ! But she faithfully began it again as soon 
as she had finished the volume. For sixty years I believe. Miss 
Immy had never been seen without her little basket of keys 
and her volume of “ Clarissa Harlowe.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE, 


19 


I will noh, I say, attempt to describe the old place. But I 
must needs give some account of the inhabitants of it, as they 
were at the period to which this history refers. 

The Lindisfarn property had belonged to the Lindisfarns of 
Lindisfarn so long, that not only the memory of man, but the 
memory of county historians “ran not to the contrary,’^ as the 
legal phrase goes. The rental at the period of our history 
was a well paid four thousand a-year, and the tenantry were 
as well-to-do and respectable a body as any estate in the county 
could boast. Oliver Lindisfarn, the son and grandson of other 
Olivers, and the lord of this eminently “ desirable property,” 
was in his sixtieth year at the time here spoken of. He had 
married early in life a sister of his neighbour. Lord Farnleigh ; 
— for the old lord had lived at Wans trow, which was now the 
residence of the Dowager his widow ; the young lord having 
taken his young wife to reside on a larger property in a distant 
county. The present Dowager Lady Farnleigh was therefore 
the sister-in-law of the lady Mr. Lindisfarn had first married ; 
but not of the mother of the two young ladies, of whom one 
has already been presented to the reader. They were the 
offspring of a second marriage. Lady Catherine Lindisfarn 
had died after a few weeks of marriage, leaving her husband a 
childless widower. He had remained such about eight years, and 
had then at the age of forty- three married a Miss Yenafry, who 
after two years of marriage left him a widower for the second 
time, and the father of two little twin-born girls, Catherine and 
Margaret. Catherine had been the name of Mr. Lindisfarn’s 
first wife, and Margaret that of his second. 

Of course the absence of a male heir was a heavy and bitter 
disappointment to the twice-widowed father of two unpor- 
tioned girls. Mr. Lindisfarn’s daughters were entirely so ; for 
on Lady Catherine’s death her fortune returned to her family ; 
and Miss Yenafry had been dowered by her beauty alone. In 
another point of view, however, the case of Mr. Lindisfarn was 
not so hard as that of many another son-less holder of entailed 
property. For the Lindisfarn estates were entailed only on the 
male heir of Oliver, and failing an heir of the elder brother, 
on the male heir of his younger brother, the Bev. Theophilus 
Lindisfarn. If there were failure of a male heir there also, 
the daughters of Oliver would become co-heiresses. Bul3 Dr, 
Theophilus Lindisfarn, Canon of Silverton, his brother’s junior 
by only one year, had married Lady Sempronia Balstock, much 
about the same time that his elder brother had married Lady 
2-3 


20 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


Catherine Farnlelgh ; and of this marriage had been born a 
son, Julian, who was about thirteen years old at the time of the 
birth of Oliver Lindisfarn’s daughters. They were born, 
therefore, to nothing, save such provision as their father might 
lay by for them out of his income ; and Julian, when his 
uncle’s second wife died a year after giving birth to these 
portionless girls, became the heir to the estates, barring the 
unlikely chance of his uncle contracting a third marriage. 

Long, however, before the dowerless little twins were 
capable of caring for any provision save that needed for 
the passing hour, their prospects in life became somewhat 
brightened. When the second Mrs. Lindisfarn died, a sister of 
hers, a few years her senior, who had been married for several 
years to a Baron de Benneville, a Frenchman, and who had 
been Margaret Lindisfarn’s godmother, being childless, pro- 
posed to adopt her goddaughter. A pressing and most kind 
proposal to this effect, warmly backed by the Baron himself, 
held out to his child a prospect which the widowed father did 
not feel justified in refusing. The De Rennevilles were 
wealthy, and of good standing in the best Parisian society. 
Madame de Renneville had not abandoned her religion. She 
remained a Protestant, and there was no objection, therefore, 
on that score. So the little Margaret, almost before she was 
out of her nurse’s arms, was sent to Paris, to be brought up 
as the recognized heir to the wealth of the prosperous 
French financier. 

The prize which Fortune had in her lottery for the other 
twin sister, Catherine, was less brilHant; but, nevertheless, 
■was sufficient to make a very important difference in her 
position. Lady Farnleigh, the sister-in-law of Mr. Lindis- 
farn’s first wife, had become the attached friend of his second ; 
— and the g'odmother of little Catherine. And much about 
the same time that Margaret was sent to Paris, it was under- 
stood that a sum of six thousand pounds was destined by Lady 
Farnleigh as a legacy to her otherwise wholly unprovided for 
goddaughter. 

This was the position of the Lindisfarn family at the period 
of Mrs. Lindisfarn’s death. But events had occurred between 
that time and the date at which this history opens, which very 
materially altered the whole state of the case. And in order 
to explain these, it is necessary to turn our attention away for 
a few minutes from the family at the Chase, and give it to that 
of Doctor Lindisfarn, in the Close at Silverton. 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


21 


The Chapter of Silverton at the remote period at which I 
write, was not noted for the strictly clerical character of its 
members. Public opinion did not demand much in this respect 
in those days. The Right Reverend Father, who had presided 
for many years over the diocese, was a well-born and courtly 
prelate, far better known in certain distinguished metropolitan 
circles than at Silverton. He was known to hold very strong 
opinions on the necessity of filling the ranks of the established 
church with gentlemen. And though I cannot assert that he 
required candidates for ordination to forward, together with 
their other papers, a heraldic certificate of the “ quarter in gs''^ 
they were entitled to, after the fashion of a noble German 
chapter, yet it was perfectly well understood that no awkward 
high-low shod son of the soil, however competent to “ mouth 
out Homer’s Greek like thunder,” would do well to apply to 
the Bishop of Silverton for ordination. 

The Silverton canonries were very good things ; and good 
things of this sort were, it may perhaps be thought, naturally 
reserved for those whose worship was rather given to the 
special patron of good things, Mammon, than to any more 
avowed object of their adoration. But nobody could say that 
the Silverton Canons were not gentlemen. Nor can it be said 
that, with the exception of one, or, perhaps, two of the body, 
whose love for good things went to the extent of hoarding 
them when they had got them, they were otherwise than well 
liked by the Silvertonians of all classes; putting out of the 
question, as of course they were out of the question, those few 
pestilent fellows who sang hymns to hornpipe tunes down in 
the back slums. They were gentlemen ; and the Silverton 
world said that they spent their revenues as such, which was 
what the Silverton world considered to be the main point. 
Only the worst of it was, that Messrs. Falconer and Fishbourne 
might have had reason to think that some among them pushed 
this good quality to excess. 

Dr. Lindisfarn, it is fair to state at once, to prevent the 
reader of these improved days from conceiving an unfounded 
prejudice against him, was perhaps the most clerical of the 
body in question. Not that it is to be understood by this, that 
any High Churchman, or Low Churchman, or Broad Churchman 
of the present day, would have deemed poor Dr. Lindisfarn 
anything like up to the mark of their different requirements 
and theories. He would have been sorely perplexed to com- 
prehend what anybody was driving at, who should have talked 


22 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


to him of the duty of “earnestness/^ He found the world a 
very fairly satisfactory world, as it was, and had never con- 
ceived the remotest idea, good, easy man, that he was in any 
wise called on to do anything towards leaving it at all better 
than he found it. Nevertheless, he was fairly entitled to be 
considered as the most respectably clerical of his Chapter, 
because his tastes and pursuits were of a nature that was not 
in any degree in overt disaccordance with the clerical character, 
even according to our modern conception of it. Whereas the 
same could hardly be said of the majority of his fellow Canons. 
One was a very notorious joker of jokes, — of very good jokes 
too, occasionally, for he was a man of real wit. (N.B. Though 
a very clever fellow in his way, he was not capable of writing 
some of the best articles in the Edinburgh Uevieio.') But 
nothing in the shape of a joke came amiss to him, be the 
subject or tendency of it what it might. He preferred good 
society ; but the profanum vulgus wa s not the portion of 
the vulgar, which he most hated and kept at a distance. 
Another was known to be an accomplished musical critic : 
but was thought to prefer Mozart and Cimarosa to Boyce 
and Purcell, and to have a not uninfluential voice in the 
counsels of the lessee of His Majesty’s Theatre in the Hay- 
market. Another had been seen on more than one occasion 
to wave above his head a hat that looked very like a full- 
blown shovel in the excitement of a hardly contested race 
at Newmarket. A fourth was universally allowed to be 
one of the best whist-players in England, and was thought 
to be in no danger of losing his skill for want of practice, 
while a fifth was believed to be a far deeper student of the 
mysteries of the stock-exchange than of any other sort of 
lore. 

Dr. Theophilus Lindisfarn meddled with none of these anti- 
clerical pursuits. His heart, as well as his corporeal presence, 
was in Silverton Close, and Silverton Cathedral Church. But 
his love for the Church fixed itself rather on the material 
structures which are as the outward and visible signs of its 
inward and spiritual existence, than on the abstract ideas of a 
church invisible. He was a man of considerable learning and 
of yet greater zeal for antiquarian and especially ecclesiological 
pursuits. It is in the nature and destiny of hobbies to be hard 
ridden. This was Dr. Lindisfarn’s hobby ; and he did ride it 
very hard. He was far from a valueless man, as a member of 
the Silverton Chapter. The Dean was not untinctured with 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


23 


similar tastes ; and with his assistance and support, Dr. 
Lindisfarn had accomplished much for the restoration and 
repair of Silverton Cathedral, at a time when such things were 
less thought of than they are in these days. He had fought 
many a hard fight in the Chapter with his brother dignitaries, 
who fain would have expended no shilling of the church 
revenues for such a purpose ; and not content with the 
niggard grants which it had been possible to induce that 
body to allocate for the purpose, had spent much of his own 
money on his beloved church. In fact it was very well known, 
that the whole of a considerable sum, which he had received 
from an unexpected legacy by a relative of Lady Sempronia, 
had gone towards the new panelled ceiling in painted 
coffer-work of the transept of the cathedral. And indeed it 
was whispered at Silverton tea-tables, that old Mr. Falconer 
had been heard to say, with a mysterious nod of his head, that 
the legacy in question had by no means covered all that the 
Canon had made himself liable for. 

Mr. Falconer no doubt knew what he was talking about, for 
besides being Dr. Lindisfarn’ s banker, he was a brother Archae- 
ologist. The votaries of that seducing pursuit were far less 
numerous in those days than in our own ; and the erudite Canon 
of Silverton was fortunate in finding a fellow labourer and 
supporter where, it might have been supposed, httle likely to 
meet with it, in the leading banker of the little city. The 
Dean was the only member of the Chapter, besides Dr. 
Lindisfarn, who cared for such pursuits. But a few recruits 
were found among the clergy and gentry of the county; 
and the banker and the Canon together had succeeded in 
getting up a little county Archtnological society and publishing 
club. 

Dr. Lindisfarn’s tastes and pursuits therefore may fairly be 
said to have been clerical, or at least not anti- clerical, as well 
as gentlemanlike. Nevertheless, the Lady Sempronia his wife, 
did not look on them with an altogether favourable eye. And 
perhaps she can hardly be blamed for her feeling on the sub- 
ject. The Canon’s hobby was a very expensive one. The cost 
of it, indeed, would have done far more than amply maintain the 
handsome pair of carriage horses, which Lady Sempronia hope- 
lessly sighed for, and which would have spared her the bitter 
mortification of going to visit the county members’ wives, or 
Lady Farnleigh at Wansf^ow, in a hybrid sort of conveyance 
drawn by one stout clumsy horse in the shafts, whereas Mrs. 


24 


LINDTSFARi'T CHASE. 


Dean drove a handsome pair of greys. Many other of the 
small troubles and mortifications, which helped to make Lady 
Sempronia a querulous and disappointed woman, were trace- 
able, and were very accurately as well as very frequently traced 
by her, to the same source. Upon the whole, therefore, it was 
hardly to be wondered at, that the poor lady should abhor all 
Archgeology in general, and the Silverton society and printing 
club in particular; and that she should have regarded the 
discovery of a whitewash-covered moulding or half-defaced in- 
scription as a bitter misfortune, boding evil to the comforts of 
her hearth and home ! 

Lady Sempronia’s soul was moreover daily vexed by another 
peculiarity of her husband’s idiosyncrasy, which she put down, 
— with scarcely sufficient warrant perhaps from the principles 
of psychological science, — all to the account of the detested 
Archaeology. Dr. Lindisfarn was afflicted by habitual absence 
of mind to a degree which occasionally exposed him and those 
connected with him to considerable inconvenience. His wife 
held that the evil was occasioned wholly by his continual medi- 
tations on his favourite pursuit, when his wits should have been 
occupied with other matters. But the evil had doubtless a 
deeper root. It is an infirmity generally regarded with a com- 
passionate smile by those who are witnesses of its manifesta- 
tions. But to a nam’ow little mind, soured and irritated by 
other annoyances, and at best placing its highest conception 
of human perfection in the due and accurate performance of 
the thousand little duties and proprieties of everyday life in 
proper manner, place, and time, the eccentricities of a tho- 
roughly absent man were sources of anger and exacerbation, 
that contributed far more to make the life of the lady who felt 
them, unhappy, than they did to affect in any way the placid 
object of them. Upon one occasion, for instance, her indigna- 
tion knew no bounds, when having with some difficulty driven 
the Canon from his study up stairs to dress for a dinner party, 
to which they were engaged, the Doctor, on finding himself in 
his bed-room, had forgotten all about the business in hand, and 
had quietJv undressed himself and gone to bed, where he was 
found fatet; asleep, shortly afterwards, by the servant sent to 
look after him. Of course, all Silverton soon knew the story, 
and the ill-used lady poured her lamentations into the ears of 
her special friends. But Lady Sempronia was not popular at 
Silverton, even among her special friends; and it may be 
feared that the Silverton public accorded her on this, as well as 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


25 


on other occasions, less of their sympathy than her sorrows 
deserved. 

For in truth the poor lady had been sorely tried, and her life 
imbittered by far more serious sorrow and severer trouble ; — a 
sorrow that had left its mark indelibly on her heart, and which 
produced in her mind another source of half latent irritation 
against her husband, because he did not seem to be equally 
affected by it; yet it was the greatest common misfortune a 
man and wife can have to share ; — the loss of an only child. 
And Lady Sempronia wronged her husband in supposing that 
he did not feel, or rather had not felt, the blow acutely. But 
some natures are so constituted, that sorrow sinks into them, 
as water into a spongy cloth; while from others it as naturally 
runs off, as from a waterproof surface. And it would be a 
mistake to pronounce on this ground alone, that either of these 
natures is necessarily superior to the other. And then again 
in this matter, the Doctor no doubt owed much to his hobby. 
Serious hard work, it has been said, is the most efficacious 
alleviation for sorrow. And the next best, probably, is hard 
riding on a favourite hobby. 

But poor Lady Sempronia had no help in bearing her grief 
from either one of these; and it was a very heavy burthen to 
bear. 

There were circumstances, that made it a very special and 
exceptionally sore sorrow to the bereaved parents ; and these 
circumstances, must be as briefly as may be related. 

The two brothers, Oliver and Theophilus Lindisfarn, had 
married, as has been said, nearly about the same time. The 
marriage of the elder brother remained childless. But to the 
younger, a son, Julian, was born about (I think, in) the year 
1793. Of course the childless wife of the squire was a little 
envious, and the happy wife of the churchman a little exultant, 
—pardonable in either case. As the years slipped away, the 
probability that the little Julian would be the heir to the Lin- 
disfarn property grew greater. When, he being at the time 
about five years old, his aunt the squire’s wife, died, his chance 
was somewhat diminished, for there was the probability that 
his uncle would marry again. He was about thirteen years 
old when that event did happen. But when, some two years 
later, his uncle’s second wife died, leaving him, as the reader 
knows, only two twin daughters, the probability that Julian 
must be the heir had become all but a certainty. 

Under these circumstances, with a silly, adoring, fine lady 


26 


LINDISrARN CHASE, 


mother, and an indulgent, placid, absent, archaeological father, 
it is perhaps not surprising that Julian, kept at home in com- 
pliance with his mother’s urgent desire, to “ read ” with a tutor 
at Silverton, went — as the common saying expressively 
phrases it — to the bad. Of course that downward journey — 
“to the bad,” — took some little time in making. And Julian 
was just over twenty-one when he reached the had altogether. 
There were cavalry barracks at Silverton; and there was 
always a cavalry regiment stationed there. The younger of 
the officers were naturally enough among the most habitual 
associates of the young heir of Lindisfarn. And though it 
may very well be, that no one of those young men went alto- 
gether to the bad himself, yet there can be little doubt that 
they helped to forward Julian on his road thither. 

His most intimate friend and associate, however, at that 
time, — when he was about from twenty to one-and-twenty, that 
is to say, — was Frederick Falconer. And all those — ^his parents 
among the rest, — who had seen with some alarm, that Julian 
was becoming very “ wild,” considered that his intimacy with 
so steady and well-conducted a young man as the banker’s son 
was, at all events, a good sign. The careful old banker, on 
the other hand, was by no means equally well pleased with the 
intimacy between the two young men. It was difficult, how- 
ever, to interfere to put a stop to it, without taking unplea- 
santly strong measures, which would have caused much scandal, 
and heartburning and enmity, in the small social circle of a 
little country town. Old Mr. Falconer had, moreover, much 
confidence in the steadiness and good principles of his son. 
Some of the young cavalry officers, whose society the two Sil- 
verton youths frequented, were men of large means ; and stories 
were rife in Silverton of orgies and escapades which, in varied 
ways, involved expenditure on no inconsiderable scale. There 
were excursions to distant race-courses; and more uncertain 
and cautiously whispered rumours of nights spent in rooms of 
the barracks, when suppers and champagne, in whatever 
abundance, were the least dangerous and objectionable portion 
of the night’s amusement. Frederick Falconer, however, never 
exceeded his liberal, but not unreasonably large allowance, and 
never appeared in want of money; and the ^Id banker con- 
sidered, that to be out of debt was to be out of danger ; and 
that; a young man, who lived strictly within his means, and 
always made his quarter’s allowance supply his quarterly ex- 
penditure, could not be going far wrong. There were not 


IINDISFARN CHASE. 


27 


wanting in Silverton, however, one or two shrewd old fellows, 
who observed to one another, that there was such a thing as 
being too steady : that young as Freddy Falconer was, — three 
or four years Julian’s junior, — it was on the cards that young 
Lindisfarn might get more harm from young Falconer, than 
the reverse. But of course the prudent old gentlemen, whose 
observation suggested to them such remarks, were too prudent 
1 to make them out loud. 

Certain it was, that young Lindisfarn did not imitate his 
steady friend’s prudence in the matter of his expenses. Julian, 
on the contrary, always exceeded his more than liberal allow- 
ance, and was always importuning his father for money. And 
I the easy, absent old Canon, careless in money matters, and cul- 
pably extravagant on his own account, did, without much re- 
sistance, and without any such inquiries as he ought in common 
prudence to have made, supply his son with sums, which at 
the end of the year very seriously increased the balance against 
him in Messrs. Falconer and Fishbourne’s books. And then 
“ my brother Noll ” had to be applied to for assistance. And 
the jolly old squire, after roaring his indignation in the bank 
I parlour, in tones which made every pane in the windows 
' vibrate, and caused Mr. Fishbourne to shake in unison with 
i them in his shoes, and Mr. Falconer to jump from his chair 
with the momentary idea of clapping his hand on Mr. Lindis- 
farn’s mouth, before it had made known the business in hand 
I to half Silverton, — lent the money out of funds laid aside for 
; the provision of his daughters, — and forgot the transaction 
before the end of the week. 

And then it was the same thing all over again ! or rather a 
similar thing on a much extended scale. Major rerum nascitur 
ordol'' as is ever the case in such careers as Julian Lindisfarn 
, was running; for the march to the devil always has to be 
j played with a rapidly crescendo movement. 

|: And then and then, — to make a very sad story as short 

I'l an one as may be, — one fine morning in the year 1814, Julian 
j Lindisfarn was missing from his father’s house, and the bed in 
1; which he was supposed to have slept was found not to have 
been occupied. And it did come to the ears of some of those 
prudent old observers of their neighbours’ affairs, of whom I 
i spoke before, that Mr. Thorburn the Minor Canon had told 
I Peter Grlenny the organist, that returning home through the 
*1 Close late that night, he had seen young Falconer in close 
confabulation with Julian in the shade of the wall of his 


28 


ITNDTSFABN CHASE. 


father’s house, just under the young man’s bedroom window. 
Mr. Frederick, however, was known by his family to have gone 
to bed in his own room at a much earlier hour ; and everybody 
in Silverton knew that poor Ned Thorburn, though always 
perfectly good for a catch or a glee till any hour you pleased 
in the morning, was apt to be good for little else after twelve 
o’clock at night ; and certainly not good as a witness to the 
identity of a person seen in dark shadow by him, when coming 
home from a remarkably pleasant meeting of good fellows. 
And when the facts which the next day brought to light, were 
known in Silverton, neither Thorburn nor Glenny, nor any of 
those few persons whose ears the report of the Minor Canon’s 
vision had reached, cared to recur to the circumstance. 

The terrible facts were shortly these. 

The London Mail which reached Silverton on the very morn- 
ing on which Julian disappeared thence, brought letters to 
Messrs. Falconer and Fishbourne, which made it evident that 
the signature of their firm had been forged to drafts for very 
heavy amounts on their London correspondents. The execution 
of the forgery was so admirable, that it was no wonder the 
fraud had been successful. It is not necessary to detail the 
circumstances, which, even if Julian’s flight had not immedi- 
ately pointed him out as the criminal, abundantly sufficed to 
bring the guilt home to him. It is sufficient to state, that 
there was no possibility of doubt upon the subject. But it was 
at the time thought very extraordinary, even supposing that 
Julian Lindisfarn was gifted with that faculty of imitation, 
which might have enabled him to counterfeit so successfully 
the signature of the Silverton firm, that he should have pos- 
sessed not only such a general acquaintance with the nature of 
banking business, as should have taught him how to perpetrate 
the fraud he contemplated, but such a knowledge of the relations 
between Messrs. Falconer and Fishbourne and the London 
house, as must have guided him in his operations, and above 
all, the information, which it seemed impossible to doubt that 
he must have possessed, of the exact time when the course of 
business communication between the Silverton bankers and 
their London correspondents must bring the fraud to detection. 
It was certainly within the limits of possibility, that Julian’s 
flight was accidentally well timed j but it appeared hardly 
credible that such was the case. 

It was a black day in Silverton — that which brought this 
sad catastrophe to light; for old Dr. Lindisfarn, despite his 


LINDISFAUN CHASE. 


29 


faults and eccentricities, was a popular man in Silverton, and 
the old Squire at the Chase was more than popular, — he was 
exceedingly beloved, not only in Silverton, but throughout the 
county. The poor, sorely- stricken mother too, though Lady 
Sempronia was not much liked, could not but be deeply pitied 
on this sad occasion. 

It was indeed a heavy blow on all on whom any part of the 
reflected disgrace fell. And the partner of the London house 
; came down to Silverton ; and there were long mysterious sit- 
tings with lawyers in the back parlour, at Falconer and Fish- 
bourne’s; and the down- stricken father, with bowed white 
i head, had to be there: and the .hearty old squire, of whom 
, men remarked that he looked suddenly ten years older, had to 
be there. And it was said that the London firm behaved for- 
bearingly and well ; and that the Silverton banker had behaved 
equally well ; — and though nobody knew what arrangements 
had been come to respecting the loss of the money, it was 
known that there would be no prosecution, and that the lament- 
able facts would be hushed up, as far as possible, 
j Before long it became known, too, that the miserable young 
man, who had caused all this wide-spreading sorrow and suf- 
fering, had succeeded in making good his escape to the oppo- 
site coast of France, in a fishing- vessel belonging to the small 
fishing-town at the mouth of the estuary of the Sill, about five 
or six miles from Silverton. Under the miserable circum- 
stances of the case, it was a relief to his family to know that 
he was out of the country. For those were days in which 
death was the penalty of forgery, and it was one of the crimes 
to which it was deemed necessary to show no mercy. 

A little later, news reached Silverton, that the lost one had 
left France for America : and it was known that the heir to 
the respected old name and fine estate of Lindisfarn, was an 
exiled wanderer, none knew where, in the New World. For if 
Julian had never scrupled before his fall to importune his 
father for money, shame, or some other feeling, prevented him 
from ever making any application to him afterwards. Had it 
been possible to obtain such information as might have made 
it practicable to communicate with him, he would not have 
been left without the means of support. But from the day of 
his escape, no word came from him ; nor beyond the fact of his 
lauding in America, could any trace of him be discovered. 

And so the little girl at Lindisfarn Chase, Julian’s cousin 
Kate, then between eight and nine years old, had to be taaght 


30 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


that she must forget all about Cousin Julian, and name his 
name no more. To the child this was of course not difficult. 
The Silverton public also, when they had had their talk; — 
when some had declared that they never could have believed 
such a thing possible, while others less loudly and more perti- 
naciously asserted, that they had all along foreseen that Julian 
Lindisfarn’s career must needs lead to some such catastrophe ; 
— and when Mr. Frederick Falconer had expressed to a suffi- 
cient number of persons the shock and astonishment which this 
unhappy business had been to him : had admitted that he 
knew poor Julian to be more dissipated than he could have 
wished, but had always deemed him the soul of honour and 
integrity, and had sufficiently often “ prayed God, that it might 
be a warning to him for life, of the necessity of care in the 
choice of associates,” — then Julian Lindisfarn was forgotten in 
Silverton, and his place knew him no more. 

Of course it was not so up at the Chase ; and still less in 
the now still and quiet old house in the Close. But, save when 
the incorrigible Canon would now and then throw poor Lady 
Sempronia into a fit of hysterics, which sent her to bed for 
eight and forty hours, by speaking of his son in total oblivion 
of all the misery which had fallen on him, his name was 
never heard. 

There was one other house, not in but near Silverton, where 
the fugitive was not forgotten, nor the sound of his name 
unheard. There was another chapter in the little edifying 
story of Julian Lindisfarn’s Silverton life, of which very little 
was known at that time to his friends or to anyone in Silverton ; 
and which may here be touched on as lightly, hnd got over as 
quickly as possible ; though subsequent events make it abso- 
lutely necessary to the understanding of the sequel of the his- 
tory, to give a succinct statement of the facts. 

Stretching along the coast and far into the interior of the 
county, there was a very extensive district of wild moorland, 
which ran up to within about ten miles from Silverton. Sill 
Moor, as this tract of land is called, was — and is still in a 
smaller degree, — a peculiar district in many respects ; and the 
few small villages, which are scattered at great distances from 
each other over its wide surface, are inhabited, or were so forty 
years ago, by a peculiarly and singularly wild population. In 
one of those moor villages, about fifteen miles from Silverton, 
which it will be necessary hereafter to speak of more at length, 
there was a somewhat better house than most of the others 


LlNDIgPARN CHASE* 


31 


around it. In that house there lived an old widowed man, 
whose name was Jared Mallory, and who was, and for many 
years had been, the clerk of the neighbouring ancient church, 
which was the parish church of an immense district of moor- 
land. The village was called Chewton-in-the-Moor ; and the 
living was held by Dr. Lindisfarn with his Canonry. And in 
Jared Mallory’s lone house lived* with him Barbara Mallory 
his daughter. And there was no girl in Silverton, or in all 
the country side, so beautiful as Barbara Mallory, the wild 
moor-flower. And on that fatal morning of Julian’s flight, he 
did not make straight for the fishing village on the coast at 
which he embarked ; but went round by Chewton-in-the-Moor. 
And there in the grey moor mist, a little before the dawn, 
under the shelter of one of the huge grey boulder-stones that 
stud the moor, there was one of those partings that leave a 
scar upon the heart, which no after time can heal. And beau- 
tiful Barbary Mallory, as she clung half frantically with one 
arm to the man, whom the fear at his heels was compelling to 
tear himself away from her, pressed a child six months old to 
her breast with the other. But though she was a mother, the 
villagers still called her Bab Mallory. And the desolation in 
that lone moorland house was even worse than the desolation 
in the childless house in the Close. 

No more was heard in Silverton of Julian Lindisfarn for 
three years after the date of his flight. Then came a report of 
his death, vague and unaccompanied by any particulars, but 
referring to persons and places, which enabled an agent sent 
out to America by his family, to ascertain the following facts. 
After having been about a twelvemonth in the United States, 

I he passed into Canada, and there it appeared, became associ- 
: ated with a small band of independent adventurers, some twenty 
in number, bound on a journey into the fur regions of the far 
north-west. The party made, it seemed, one tolerably fortu- 
nate journey, and returned for a second venture in the follow- 
ing year. But having been surprised one night in their camp, 
on the further side of the Bocky Mountains, by a small band 
J of marauding Indians, not much exceeding their own in 
number, they had had to engage in a desperate struggle, in 
which several of both parties were slain. Among these was 
^ Julian Lindisfarn. Of course, as large material interests de- 
“ pended on the fact of his death, it was desirable that the evi- 
I dence of it should be satisfactory. And that which the agent, 
I’’ who had been sent to America for the purpose, was enabled to 


32 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


obtain, was perfectly so. He had spoken with, and brought 
back with him the authenticated testimony of three survivors 
of the fray with the Indians, who had seen him slain by them. j 
These facts became known to his family in 1817. The un- i 
fortunate young man must have been about four-and- twenty at J 
the time of his death. This was the event that so materially ^ 
changed, as has been remarked, .the state of things at Lindis- I 
farn Chase. Mr. Oliver Lindisfarn’s twin daughters became I 
the CO -heiresses of Lindisfarn. | 

It cannot be supposed that, under the circumstances, Julian * 
Lindisfarn’s death should have been felt to be otherwise than a 
fortunate event by most of the members of his family. The i 
Silverton public naturally felt, and said, that it was the best | 
thing that could have happened in every point of view. Some | 
additional tears wetted poor Lady Sempronia’s pillow. But it ^ 
was in the lone house in the moor, that Julian Lindisfarn’s i 
death caused the sharpest pang. I 


END OF PART L 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


S3 


^att Sfconti. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE FAMILY AT THE CHASE. 

In consequence of the circumstances of the family history 
narrated in the preceding chapter, Margaret Lindisfarn was 
about to return to the home of her ancestors in the recognised 
position of co-heiress to the family estates, — a sufficiently bril- 
liant destiny, considering that the property was a good and 
well paid four thousand a-year, unencumbered by mortgage, 
debt, or other claims of any sort. Had those circumstances 
not occurred, — had Julian Lindisfarn been still living, — Mar- 
garet’s position, instead of being a brighter one than that of 
her sister, as it had appeared to be at the time when she had 
been adopted by the He Hennevilles, and Kate had only her 
godmother’s six thousand pounds to look to, would have now 
been a far less splendid one. For shortly before the time at 
which she was returning from Paris to Silver ton, all the mag- 
nificent He Penneville prospects had suddenly made themselves 
wings and flown away. 

The large fortune of the Baron de Benneville had been, like 
that of many another Frenchman bearing a name indicative of 
former territorial greatness, entirely a financial and not a 
territorial one. And that incapacity for leaving well alone, 
which is generated by the habitual excitement of a life spent 
in speculation, and which has wrecked so many a colossal 
fabric of commercial greatness, was fatal to that of M. de 
Benneville. A series of unfortunate operations on the Paris 
Bourse had ended by leaving him an utterly ruined man. And 
there was an end of all expectations from Margaret’s Parisian 
relatives. 

B 


34 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Of course the shock of this calamity was very differently 
felt from what it would have been, had it occurred during 
the lifetime of Julian Lindisfarn. It was very materially modi- 
fied to the young lady herself, and doubtless also to the kind 
relatives who had stood in the position of parents to her from 
her infancy, by the knowledge that there was a very sub- 
stantial English inheritance to fall back on, now that the 
more splendid but less secure French visions had faded away. 
Nevertheless, the calamity had been felt very distinctly to he 
a calamity by Margaret. In the first place, she was, of course, 
laudably grieved to be obliged to part with those who had 
been as parents to her. In the next place, she very naturally 
looked forward with anything but pleasure to a migration from 
Paris to Silverton, and from the home of an adoptive father 
and mother, whom she knew, to that of a real father, of whom 
she knew nothing. And in the third place, she estimated 
with very practical accuracy, the difference between an heiress- 
ship to some six or seven thousand a-year, and an heiress-ship 
to two thousand only. For somehow or other it happens, 
that this is a point on which the most beautifully candide 
French girls are generally found to possess a singularly sound 
and business-like knowledge. We are all aware how cautiously 
and scrupulously the French system of educating demoiselles 
comme il faut, labours to fence-in the snow-like mental purity 
of its pupils from all such contact or acquaintance with the 
world, as might involve the slightest risk of producing a 
thought or a sentiment, which might by possibility lead to 
something calculated to blemish the perfection of that ingenuite, 
which is so eloquently expressed by every well-schooled feature 
of these carefully trained and jealously guarded maidens. 
Nevertheless, a due appreciation of the intimate connection 
between cash and social position, is not among the tabooed 
subjects of any French female schoolroom, whether it be under 
the paternal roof, or that of some SacrS Goeur, or other such 
first-rate conventual establishment. 

For various reasons, therefore, it was a black day for poor 
Margaret, when she had to leave her Parisian home for an 
exile au fond du 'province^ as she expressed it, in foggy Eng*- 
land. “At the bottom of the province,’^ Silverton certainly 
was, if the top of it is to be supposed to be the part nearest 
London. But the Silvertonians had no notion that the “sun 
yoked his horses so far from their western city, as to justify 
the sort of idea which Margaret bad formed to herself of its 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


35 


remoteness. And least of all had the warm hearts who, on 
that bright September afternoon were expecting the arrival of 
the recovered daughter of the house at Lindisfarn Chase, the 
remotest idea that the home to which they were eager to 
welcome her, was other than on the whole about the happiest 
and most highly favoured spot of earth’s surface. 

Kate was, as Lady Farnleigh had promised her she should 
be, in very good time to join the assembled members of the 
family before the hour at which Margaret was expected. They 
were all in the long low drawing-room, lined with white panel- 
ling somewhat yellow with years, and gilt mouldings, the four 
windows of which looked out on the terrace in front of the 
house. It was very evident at a glance, that something out of 
the ordinary routine of the family life was about to take place. 
None of those there assembled would have been in the room 
at that hour in the ordinary course of things. And there was 
an unmistakable air of expectancy, and even of a certain degree 
of nervousness about them all. The old squire had caused 
an immense fire to be made in the ample grate ; and was very 
evidently suffering from the effects of it. It was a beautifully 
warm afternoon, — ^but the Squire had an idea that his daugh- 
ter was coming from a southern clime where it was always 
very hot, — and besides, the making of a big fire seemed to his 
imagination to be in some sort symbolical of welcome. He 
was walking up and down the long room, looking out of the 
windows, as he passed them, wiping his massive broad fore- 
head and florid face with his silk handkerchief, and consulting 
his watch every two minutes. He was dressed in a blue coat 
with metal buttons, yellow kerseymere waistcoat, drab breeches, 
top boots, and a white neckcloth. His head was bald in front, 
and the long locks of silver hair hung over his coat collar 
behind. It is worth while to specify these particulars of his 
toilette, for he never appeared otherwise before dinner. 

“ I am glad you are come, Kate ; I began to think you would 
have been late ! And I should not have been pleased at that. 

I suppose her ladyship would not come in to-day ? ” 

No. She thought she had better not to-day ; I took good 
care about the time. It’s not near two yet.” 

“ It wants thirteen minutes,” said the Squire, again looking 
at his watch, “ she can hardly be here before two. Go and 
listen if you can hear wheels, Mat • you have an ear like a 
hare ! ” 

The ‘‘ Mat ” thus addressed was to every other human being 

3—2 


86 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


in Sillshire, from the Earl of Silverton at Sillhead Park to the 
ostlers at the Lindisfarn Arms, Mr. Mat. Ifc would have alto- 
gether discomposed him to address him as Mr. Matthew Lin- 
disfarn ; but he would not have liked anybody save the Squire 
to call him plain ‘‘ Mat.** He was Mr. Mat ; and only recog- 
nized himself under that name and title. Mr. Mat was a second 
cousin of the Squire ; and had been received into the house by 
the Squire’s father, when he had been left an orphan at twelve 
years old, wholly unprovided for. Since that time he had 
lived, boy and man, at Lindisfarn Chase ; and was considered 
by himself and by everybody else, as much and as irreparably 
a part of the place as the old elms and the rooks in them. He 
was about ten years the Squire*s junior, that is to say he was 
about fifty at the time of which I am speaking. Mr. Mat 
looked at from one point of view, was a very good-for-nothing 
sort of fellow ; but looked at from another, he was good for a 
great many things, and by no means valueless in his place in 
the world. He was essentially good-for-nothing at the prime 
and generally absolutely paramount business of earning his own 
living. If kind fate had not popped him into the special niche 
which suited him so well, he must have starved or lived in the 
poor-house. He was perfectly well-fitted, as far as knowledge 
went, to be a gamekeeper, and a first-rate one. But he never 
would have kept to his duties. The very fact that they were 
his duties, and the means of earning his bread, would have 
made them distasteful to him. Hot that Mr. Mat was a lazy, 
or in some sort even an idle man. He was capable of great 
exertion upon occasions. But then the occasions must be 
irregular ones. His good qualities again were many. He was 
the best farrier and veterinary surgeon in the country side, 
though totally without any science on the subject. He had a 
fine bass voice, a good ear, and sang a good song, or took a part 
in a glee in a first-rate style. He was a main support accord- 
ingly of the Silverton Glee-club, of which the Bev. Minor 
Canon Thorburn was president. But unlike that reverend 
votary of Apollo, Mr. Mat, though he liked his glass, was as 
sober as a judge. Mr. Mat, though perfectly able to speak 
quite correct and unprovincial English, when he saw fit to do 
so, was apt to affect the Sillshire dialect, to a certain degree ; 
and if there chanced to be any person present whom Mr. Mat 
suspected of finery or London-bred airs, he was sure to infuse 
a double dose of his beloved provincial Doric into his speech. 
Ho had a special grudge against any Sillshire man whom he 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


37 


suspected of being ashamed of his own country dialect. And 
Freddy Falconer was the object of his strong dislike mainly on 
this ground ; and the butt of many a shaft from Mr. Mat pur- 
posely aimed at this weakness. Often and often when Mr. Fred 
was doing the superfine, especially before ladies or Londoners, 
Mr. Mat would come across him with a “We Zillshire volk, 
muster Vreddy ! ” to that elegant young* gentleman’s intense 
disgust. There was accordingly but little love lost between, 
him and Mr. Mat. And upon one occasion Freddy had 
attempted to come over Mr. Mat by doing the distant and 
dignified, and calling him Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn, but he 
brought down upon himself such a roasting on every occasion 
when he and Mr. Mat met for the next month afterwards, that 
he was fain not to repeat the offence. Kate, who was a prime 
favourite with Mr. Mat, and who could hardly do wrong in his 
eyes, had once ventured to remonstrate with him on these pro- 
vincial proclivities, upon which he had at once avowed and 
justified his partiality. 

“ To think,” he said, “ of a Lindisfarn lass ” — (he always 
spoke of the young ladies of the family, whether of the present 
or of former generations, as Lindisfarn lasses;) — “to think of 
a Lindisfarn lass having no ear vor Zillshire ! Yor my part, I 
zem to taste all the pleasant time I’ve known, Zillshire man 
and boy for vivty years, in the zound of it, and I du love it. I 
zem it’s so homely and friendly-like. And, Miss Kate, yew du 
love it yourself, yew don’t talk like their vulgar London minced- 
up gibberish.” 

Mr. Mat in appearance was a great contrast to the Squire. 
He was a shorter and smaller man, though by no means under- 
sized. The Squire was six feet one, and broad in proportion. 
Mr. Mat’s head was as black as the Squire’s was white, and 
whereas the latter allowed his silver locks to fall almost on 
his shoulders, Mr. Mat cropped his coal-black hair so short, that 
it stood up bristling like a scrubbing-brush. He had a 
specially bright black eye under a large and bushy black eye- 
brow ; a remarkably’ brilliant set of regular teeth ; and would 
probably have been a decidedly good-looking man, if he had 
not been deeply marked with the small-pox. As it was, it 
must be admitted that Mr. Mat was far from good-looking. 
Yet there was a mingled shrewdness and kindly good-humour 
in his face that made it decidedly an agreeable one to those 
who knew him ; and few ever found Mr. Mat’s ugliness repul- 
sive after a week’s acquaintance. His dress, like that of the 


'88 


tiINDISFARN 


Squire, never varied. Before dinner he always wore a green 
coat with metal buttons, bearing on them a fox’s head, or some 
such adornment, a scarlet cloth waistcoat, a coloured necker- 
chief, drab breeches, and long buff leather gaiters. At dinner 
Mr. Mat always appeared in black coat and trousers, white 
waistcoat and neck-cloth ; and, curiously enough, — unless Fred 
Falconer led him specially into temptation, — with perfectly 
correct and unprovincial English. 

There was one other member of the family party present, 
who, though the reader has already heard of her, merits being 
presented to him a little more formally. This was Miss Imo- 
gene Lindisfarn. She was to a yet greater degree than Mr. 
Mat, an inseparable part and parcel of the Lindisfarn esta- 
blishment. She was at the time in question in her seventy- 
eighth year, and was the Squire’s aunt. As long as he could 
recollect, — and much longer therefore than anybody else about 
the place, except old Brian Wyvill, the keeper, a brother of the 
verger at the Cathedral could recollect — Miss Imogene had kept 
the keys, made the tea for breakfast, and superintended the 
female part of the establishment. She was rather short, and 
still hale, active, and as upright as a ramrod. She always 
wore a rich lavender-coloured silk dress, which as she walked, 
rustled an accompaniment to the pit-a-pat of her high-heeled 
shoes. A spotless white crape cap, and equally spotless cambric 
handkerchief, pinned cornerwise over her shoulders, completed 
her attire. A very slight touch of palsy gave a little vibra- 
tory motion to her head, which seemed, when she was laying 
down the law, as on domestic matters she was rather apt to do, 
to impart a sort of defiant expression to her bearing. She 
never appeared without a little basket full of keys in her hand, 
and the perpetual and never-changing volume of “Clarissa 
Harlowe,” already mentioned. She was the only member of 
the family who addressed the Squire as “ Mr. Lindisfarn.” Mr. 
Mat always called him “ Squire ; ” and Kate, somewhat irre- 
verently, but to her father’s great delight, was wont to call 
him “ Koll.” As for Miss Imogene, she had never been called 
anything but “ Miss Immy ” by any human being for the last 
sixty years. 

Miss Immy had cake and wine, aud a most delicately cut 
plate of sandwiches, on a tray near at hand, prepared ready to 
be administered to the traveller on the instant of her arrival. 
She had also a reserve of tea and exquisite Sillshire cream, 
in case that kind of refreshment should be preferred ; and she 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


39 


had thrice within the last quarter of an hour, ascertained by 
personal inspection, that the kettle was boiling. Miss Immy 
had meditated much on the question what kind of refection 
would probably be most in accordance with the habits of the 
Parisian-bred stranger ; and she had brought all that she could 
remember to have ever heard on the subject of French modes 
of life to bear on the subject. But soupe maigre and frogs were 
the only things that had presented themselves to her mind as 
adapted by any special propriety for the occasion, and as both 
these were for different reasons out of her reach, she had been 
forced to fall back on English ideas. But she was not without 
uncomfortable misgivings, that very possibly the foreign-bred 
young lady might have requirements of some wholly unexpected 
and unimagined kind. 

It was evident, indeed, that they were all a little nervous in 
their different ways ; and very naturally so. Mr. Mat was 
least troubled by any feeling of the kind ; being saved from it 
by the entirety of his conviction, that no human being could 
do otherwise than better their condition, and increase their 
happiness, by coming from any other part of the world to 
Sillshire. 

At length Mr. Mat cried, “ Hark ! There is the carriage ! 
Yes, there it is. They’ve just passed the Lodge.” And all of 
them hurried out to the porch in the centre of the terrace in 
front of the house, where they were joined by three or four fine 
dogs, all proving their participation in the excitement of the 
moment by barking vociferously. Old Brian Wyvill, the octo- 
genarian keeper, came hobbling up after them. Mr. Banting, 
the old butler, followed by a couple of rustics still struggling 
with the scarcely completed operation of getting their arms 
into their old-fashioned liveries, came running out at the door. 
Coachman and groom had gone with the carriage to meet Miss 
Margaret at Silverton, and were now coming up the drive from 
the Lodge. The female portion of the establishment had 
assembled just inside the hall-door, grouping themselves in 
attitudes which suggested a strong contest in their minds 
between curiosity and fear, and readiness to take to flight at 
the shortest notice, on the first appearance of danger. 

Crunch went the gravel ! Pit-a-pat went most of the hearts 
there at a somewhat accelerated pace ! The dogs barked more 
furiously than ever. The rooks began flying in circles around 
their ancient city up in the elm-clump on the left side of the 
house, and holding a very tumultuous meeting to inquire into 


40 


lindisfarn chase. 


the nature of the unusual circumstances taking place beneath 
them. The Squire hallooed to the dogs to be quiet, in a great 
mellow, musical voice, producing a larger volume of sound 
than all the rest of the noises put together. The peacocks on 
the wall of the garden behind the elm-clump, stimulated by 
emulation, screamed their utmost. And in the midst of all this 
uproar, Thomas Tibbs the coachman pulled up his horses exactly 
at the door, with a profound consciousness that Paris could do 
no better in that department at all events. 


CHAPTER V. 

Margaret’s first day at home. 

In the next instant half-a-dozen eager hands had pulled open 
the carriage door ; and an exceedingly elegant and admirably 
dressed figure spran^^j^om it, and with one bound, as it seemed, 
executed with such marvellous skill that the process involved 
no awkward movement, and no derangement of the elegant 
costume, threw itself on its knees at the feet of the astonished 
Squire. 

‘‘ Mon / ” cried Miss Margaret, in an accent so admirably 
fitted to the occasion that it seemed to include an exhaustive 
exposition of all the sentiments that a jeune personne hien elevee 
might, could, should, would, and ought to feel on returning after 
long absence to the parental roof. 

Her attitude was admirable. The heavy folds of her rich 
silk dress fell down behind, sloping out on the stone step as 
artistically as if they had been arranged by skilful hands after 
her position had been assumed. Her clasped hands were raised 
towards the Squire’s face with an expression that would have 
arrested the fall of the axe in the hands of an executioner. 
And her upturned head showed to all present a very beautiful 
face ; in which the most striking feature, as it was then seen, 
was a magnificent pair of large, dark, liquid eyes. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


41 


“ My dear child 1 ” cried the Squire in a stentorian voice? 
that made the fair girl at his feet start just a little, — (but she 
recovered herself instantly) — “ My dear child ! Glad to see 
thee! Welcome to Lindisfarn. Welcome home, lass!” he con- 
tinued, evidently desirous of getting her up if possible, but 
much puzzled about the proper way of handling her, if indeed 
there were any proper way. 

“ Mon pere ! ” reiterated his daughter with a yet more heart- 
rendingly filial intonation on the word. 

Old Brian Wyvill was affected by it, (like the audience 
recorded as having been melted to tears by a great tragedian’s 
pronunciation of the word “ Mesopotamia,”) and drew the back 
of his rough hand across his eyes. The lady’s-maid whispered 
to the housekeeper that it was “ beautiful ! ” But Miss Immy, 
greatly startled, trotted up to the still kneeling young lady, 
with that peculiar little short-stepping amble of hers, holding 
a bottle of salts in her tremulous hand, which she poked under 
Margaret’s nose, saying as she did so, “Poor thing, the 
journey ! It has been too much for her ! ” 

Margaret winked and caught her breath, and the tears came 
into her fine eyes. Human nature could not have done less, 
with Miss Immy’s salts under her nose ; but she did not belie 
her training, and showed herself equal to the occasion. 

“ De grace, madame ! ” she said, putting aside Miss Immy’s 
bottle with one exquisitely gloved hand ^ It is my father I 
see ! ” she added, with a very slight foreiglfcccent. 

“To be zure. Miss Margy ! ” struck in Mr. Mat. “To be 
zure it’s your vather ! And he wouldn’t hurt ye on ony 
account. Don’t you be afraid of the Squire. He has no more 
vice in him than a lamb ! ” 

“ Don’t 'be a fool, Mat! My girl afraid of me ! ” shouted the 
Squire. 

“ My opinion is, the lass is frighted ! ” returned Mr. Mat, in 
an under tone to the Squire, looking at Margaret shrewdly as 
he spoke, with a sort of observant look with which he would 
have examined a sick animal. “ Mayhap,” he continued in the 
same aside tone, “ it’s the dogs. I’ll take ’em off.” 

“ I’m right glad to hear you speak English, and speak it very 
well too, my dear. I was beginning to be afraid you could 
speak nothing but French,” said the Squire. 

“ Oh yes. Sir,” said his daughter. She had now risen to her 
feet, rather disappointed that her father had not raised her 
from the ground, and pressed her to his bosom ; — as he pro- 


42 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


bably would have done if he had not been too much afraid of 
injuring her toilet ; — “ Oh yes, Sir, thanks to my kind instruc- 
tors, I have cultivated my native language.’’ 

“ That’s a comfort,” said the Squire ; “ for I am ashamed to 
say that I have cultivated no other ! But Kate there, and 
Lady Farnleigh, will talk to you in French as long as you 
like.” 

Upon this, Kate, who had hitherto hung back, looking on the 
scene which has been described with a sort of dismayed sur- 
prise, that had the effect of making her feel all of a sudden 
shy towards her sister, came forward, and putting her arm 
round Margaret’s waist, gave her a kiss, saying as she did so, 
“ Shall we go in, dear ? You must be tired. And Miss Immy 
will not be contented till you have had something to eat and 
drink.” 

“ilfa soeurT^ exclaimed the new-comer; again compressing 
into that word a whole homily for the benefit of the bystanders 
on all the beauty and sanctity of that sweet relationship ; 
and returning Kate’s kiss first on one cheek and then on the 
other. 

And then they all went into the drawing-room, the two 
sisters walking with their arms round each other’s waists. 

They were singularly alike, and yet singularly contrasted, 
those twin Lindisfarn lasses, — to use Mr. Mat’s mode of speech. 
Kate was a little the^taller of the two ; — a very little; but till 
one saw the sisters'^side by side, as they were then walking 
across the hall to the drawing-room, the difference of height in 
Kate’s favour might have been supposed to be greater than it 
really was. Both had a magnificent abundance of that dark 
chestnut hair, the rich brown gloss of which really does 
imitate the colour of a ripe horse-chestnut fresh from its husk. 
But Kate wore hers in large heavy curls on either side of her 
face and neck, while Margaret’s was arranged in exquisitely 
neat bands bound closely round the small and classically shaped 
head. Both had fine eyes ; but with respect to that difficultly 
described feature, it was much less easy to say in what the two 
sisters differed, and in what they were alike, than in the more 
simple matter of the hair. At first sight one was inclined to 
say that the eyes were totally different in the two. Then a 
closer examination convinced the observer that in both girls 
they were large, well-opened, and marked by that specially 
limpid appearance which suggests the same idea of great depth, 
which is given by an unruffied and perfectly pellucid pool of 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


43 


still water. In both girls they were of that beautiful brown 
colour, which is so frequently found in conjunction with the 
above-noted appearance. And yet, notwithstanding all these 
points of similarity, the eyes of the two sisters, — or perhaps it 
would be more accurate to say, the expression of them, — was 
remarkably different. Those who saw them both, when no 
particular emotion was affecting the expression of their features, 
would have said that Margaret’s eyes were the more tender and 
loving. P|it those who knew Kate well, would have said, 
“ Wait till the eyes have some special message of tenderness 
from the heart, and then look at them.” Kate’s eyes were the 
more mobile and changeful in expression ; Margaret’s the more 
languishing. There was perhaps more of intellect in the 
former, more of sentiment in the latter. In complexion the 
difference was most complete and decided. Kate’s complexion 
was a brilliant one. Though the skin was as perfectly trans- 
parent as the purest crystal, and even the most transient 
emotion betrayed itself in the heightened or diminished 
colour of the cheek, its own proper hue was of a somewhat 
richer tint than that of the hedge-rose. The whole of Mar- 
garet’s face, on the contrary, was perfectly pale. The skin was 
of that beautiful satiny texture, and alabaster-like purity of 
white, which is felt by many men to be more beautiful than any 
of the most exquisite colouring. Perhaps this absolute absence 
of colour helped to impart to the eyes of Margaret Lindisfarn 
that peculiar depth and languishing appearance of tenderness 
which so remarkably characterised them. Both girls had 
specially beautiful and slender figures ; but that of Kate had 
more of elasticity and vigour ; that of her sister more of lithe 
yieldingness and flexibility. Both had long, slender, gracefully- 
formed hands ; but those of Margaret were the whiter and 
more satiny of the two. Both had in equal perfection the 
beauty of ancle, instep, and foot which insures a clean race- 
horse-like action and graceful gait. Yet the carriage of the 
two sisters was as remarkably different as anything about them. 
Kate’s every step expressed decision, energy, vigour, elasticity, 
— frankness, if one may predicate such a quality of a step. 
Margaret’s gait, on the contrary, seemed perfectly adapted to 
express timidity, languor, and graceful softness in its every 
movement. On the whole, the differences between the two 
sisters would be what would first strike a stranger on seeing 
them for the first time. The points of similarity between 
them would be noted afterwards, or might never be discovered 


44 


IINDISFAEN CHASE. 


at all, unless by the intelligent eye of some particularly inter- 
ested or habitually accurate observer. 

And then the somewhat uphill process of making acquaint- 
ance with the stranger had to be gone through. And Margaret 
did not appear to be one of those who are gifted with the 
special tact and facilities which make such processes rapid and 
easy. The cake and wine was administered, Miss Immy stand- 
ing over the patient the while, with one hand on her hip, filled 
to overflowing with the kindliest thoughts and intentions, but 
having very much the air of a severe hospital nurse enforcing 
some very disagreeable discipline. But Miss Margaret nibbled 
a morsel of cake, and having put into a tumbler of water just 
enough wine to slightly colour it, she sipped a little of the 
uninviting mixture. 

‘‘ Bless me, my dear ! ” cried the old lady, whose speech was, 
like that of most of her contemporaries in a similar rank of 
life at that period, tinctured with a very unmistakable flavour 
of provincialism, “ Du let me a little drop more wine into 
your glass ; zems to me, it a’int fit drink for either man or 
beast in that fashion.” 

“ Merci, Madame ! Thank you ! I always water my wine so 
much. I am used to it; ” said Margaret. 

“Well, if you are used to it, my dear; but to my mind it 
seems like spoihng teio good things. Better drink clean water, 
than water bewitched that fashion ! The Lindisfarn water is 
celebrated.” 

“ It is very good, thank you, madame.” 

“ Are they well off for water in Paris ? ” asked the Squire, 
catching at the subject in his difficulty of finding anything to 
say to his new daughter. 

“ Oh, we had always exquisite water. Sir ;” replied Margaret, 
with more of warmth in her tone than she had yet put into 
it. “Madame de B-rwenneville,” (this strange orthography is 
intended, however inadequate, to represent the most perfectly 
executed Parisian grasseijement :) “ Madame de B-rwenneville 
was always very particular -about the filtering of the water.” 

“ Filtering ! ” cried Mr. Mat, in a tone of the profoundest 
contempt. “ You can’t make bad water into good by filtering, 
filter as much as you will. We’ll do better than that for you 
here. Miss Margy ! ” 

“ I’m very particular about my filtering too, my dear ;” said 
Mr. Lindisfarn ; “ the Sillshire gravel does it for me. There’s 
my filtering machine up above the house there, all covered 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


45 


over with forest trees for ornament.” And the Squire laughed 
at his conceit, a huge but not unmusical laugh, which set 
every panel in the wainscoting on the wall vibrating. 

Margaret opened her fine eyes to their utmost extent, and 
gazed on her father with astonishment, very near akin to 
dismay. 

“We had very fine forest trees at Paris,” she said after a 
little pause, '“in the garden of the. Tuileries and the Champs 
Elysees.” 

“Ah ! I am longing for you to tell me all about Paris,” said 
Kate ; “ I should so like to see it. And all about aunt, and 
poor M. de Penneville. It is very sad. We shall never get to 
the end of all we have to say to each other ! ” 

“ Well ! I shall go and beat the turnips in the copse-side 
twelve acres,” said the Squire, rising. “ Come along, Mat. 
Call the dogs. Good-bye till dinner time, my dear ; Miss Immy 
and Kate are longing to show you all the old place. You 
will soon feel yourself at home among us. But I daresay 
it will seem dull at first after Paris.” 

And so saying, the Squire and Mr. Mat left the room. 

“ Now, Miss Immy,” said Kate, “ I shall take possession of 
Margaret till dinner-time. I’m sure you must have a thousand 
things to do ; and I mean to have her all to myself.” 

“ Good-bye, dears ; I’m all behind-hand to-day. Phoebe 
brought in the morning’s eggs hours ago ; and I have not had 
time to mark ’em yet. Kate will show you your room, Margy 
dear. I hope you will find all to your liking. But it’s to 
thought, that our Sillshire ways may be different to your 
French fashion : but if there is anything we can get, you’ve 
only to speak. I did go into Silverton myself yesterday, to see 
if I could find any French- fashioned things. But I could only 
find a bit of Paris soap at Piper’s the perfumer’s. I got that. 
You will find it in your room, dear.” 

And so Miss Immy bustled off on her avocations, leaving the 
two sisters together. 

“ Don’t let us stay here,” said Kate ; “ come up stairs and see 
your room and mine. They are close together, with a door 
between them. Is not that charming ? That is the door of 
the library,” she continued, as they crossed the hall ; “ we 
must not go in now.” 

“ Is it kept locked ? ” said Margaret. 

“ Good gracious, no ! Locked ! What should it be kept locked 
for ? ” rejoined Kate with much surprise. 


46 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“I thouglit it might be, as you said we must not go in. 
Besides, if it is left open we might get at the books, you 
know ; all sorts of books. Not that I should ever dream of 
doing anything so wrong, of course.” 

“ Get at the books ! Why, Margy dear, what are books 
made for, but to be got at ? I get at them, I can tell you ! ” 

“ Oh, Kate ! I have never been used to do anything without 
the knowledge of my dear aunt. What would papa think of 
you, if he found you out ? ” 

“Good heavens, Margaret, what are you dreaming of?” 
cried Kate in extreme astonishment, and colouring up at somo- 
of the unpleasant ideas her sister had called up in her mind. 
“ Found me out ! found me out in using the books in the 
library 1 I don’t understand you. I used to be afraid some- 
times, some ten years ago, of being found out in not using 
them ! ” 

“ But you said we must not go in,” rejoined Margaret. 

“ Because if we once went in, it would take up all the time 
till dinner ; because I want to take you. up stairs first. There 
are so many things to show you. The library must wait till 
to-morrow morning.” 

“ We will ask Papa, at dinner-time, if I may go there.” 

“Ask Papa! Why Noll will think you crazy.” 

“ And pray who is Noll ? ” asked her sister. 

“Noll ! why Papa to be sure! Don’t you know the name of 
your own father, Oliver Lindisfarn, Esquire, of Lindisfarn 
Chase ? But that is too long for every-day use ; so I call 
him Noll for short.” 

“ Oh, my sister ! Bespect for our parents I have always 
been taught to consider one of our most sacred duties. 
What would Papa say, if he knew that you called him 
Noll ? ” 

Kate stared at her sister in absolutely speechless astonish- 
ment and dismay ; — dismay at the wide gulf which she seemed 
to be discovering between her sister and herself, and the long 
path which would have to be travelled over by one or other of 
them before she and her sister could meet in that sisterly union 
of mind and heart which she had been looking forward to with 
such pleasurable anticipation ; — and speechlessness from the 
difiiculty she felt in choosing at which point, of all those 
suggested by Margaret’s last speech, she should begin her 
explanations. 

Papa were to bear me! ” she said at length; “why he 


IINDISFARN CHASE. 


47 


never hears anything* else. It’s as natural to him to hear me 
say as to hear the rooks in the rookery say ‘ caw ! ’ I 
never do anything, — we none of us here do anything, that the 
others don’t know of.” (Here Margaret shot a glance half 
shrewdly observant and half knowingly confidential at her sister ; 
but withdrew her eyes in the next instant.) “ But perhaps things 
may be different in France,” continued Kate, endeavouring to 
make the unknown quantity of this difference accountable for 
all that she found perplexing and strange to her in the mani- 
festations of her sister’s modes of thinking ; “ but you will 
soon get used to our ways, dearest ; and, to begin with, you 
must take to calling Papa, Koll at once. He is such a dear, 
darling old Noll ! ” 

“ I ! I could never, never dare do such a thing. Besides, do 
you know, Kate,” continued Margaret, with no little solemnity in 
her manner, ‘‘I think, indeed I am almost sure, that Madame 
de B-rwenneville would say that it was vulgar to do so.” 

“ Oh ! then of course we must give it up,” said Kate. She 
could not resist at the moment the temptation of so far resent- 
ing the impertinence involved in her sister’s remark ; but she 
repented of the implied sneer in the next moment. But she 
need hardly have taken herself to task, for Margaret replied 
with all gravity : — 

“I think indeed that it would be better to do so, my 
sister ! ” 

“Nonsense! you’re joking, Mar gy dear. I would not call 
darling old Noll by any other name, and he would not have 
me call him by any other name for all the world. What 
Madame de Benneville says, may be very right for Paris, 
but we are in Sillshire here, and have other ways. You’ll soon 
get used to us. See, dear, this is your room ! ” 

It was a charming r(X)m, with one large bow- window looking 
out on the trim and pretty though rather old-fashioned garden, 
on the east side of the house. 

“ Oh what an immense room 1 ” cried Margaret. “ This my 
chamber ! Why one might give a ball in it. It must be very 
cold.” 

“ If you find it so, you shall have a fire ; but I hardly think 
you will, our Sillshire climate is so mild; — much milder 
than London. See, this is my room ; just such another 
as yours, with the same look out on the garden. I hardly 
ever have a fire. Used you to have o le in your bed-room in 
Paris ? ” 


48 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


“ No ; bat then my chamber was a small one, not a third the 
size of this ; and very well closed, — very pretty, — a love of 
a little chamber.’^ 

“ I like a large room,” said Kate, a little disappointed at the 
small measure of approbation the accommodation — which she 
had flattered herself was perfect, and which was in fact all that 
any lady could possibly desire — elicited from her Parisian-bred 
sister. “ See, here are all my books, and my writing-table. I 
keep my drawing-table and all my drawing things on this side 
because of the light ; and that leaves plenty of room for the 
toilet table in front here. I should never have room for all 
these things in a small room.” 

“ It seems very nice, certainly. Are you allowed to have a 
light at night ? ” 

Whv how do you mean, dear ? We don’t go to bed in 

the dark ! ” 

“ But I mean, are you allowed to keep your candle as long as 
you like ? ” 

“ Of course I keep it till I go to bed ! Don’t you do so 
too ? ” 

“ But if you are as long as you like about going to bed, you 
may do anything you please, — read any books you like, after 
they are all in bed and asleep. But I suppose,” added she, 
thoughtfully, ‘‘ that the old woman down stairs sees how much 
candle you have burned.” 

‘‘ What strange notions you have, Margaret,” said Kate, 
almost sadly, and she began to perceive that the distance that 
separated her from her sister, was greater than she had at first 
seen it to be. “ I am as long as ever I like about going to 
bed — which generally is as short as I can make it ; and I do 
read any books I like after they are all in bed and asleep ; — or 
rather I wish I did, and should do so, were it not that I am 
always a great deal too sleepy myself. Are you good at keep- 
ing awake ? I wish I was ! And as to the old woman down 
stairs, as you call her, that is Miss Immy ; and I don’t think 
she looks much after the candle-ends ; — though it must be, by 
the way, about the only thing that she don’t look after, for 
she looks after everything*. Dear Miss Immy ! I don’t know 
what Noll and I should do without Miss Immy. And you must 
learn to love her as much as we do.” 

‘‘Who is she ? Your gouvernantej I suppose. What a queer 
name. Miss Immy ! ” 

“Miss Immy, Margy dear, is Miss Imogene Liixlisfarn, the 


LTNDISFAKN CHASE. 


49 


sister of our grandfather, Oliver Lindisfarn, and therefore our 
father’s auut. She has lived at the Chase all her life, and 
nothing would go on without her.” 

“ What a strange old woman she seems ! I don’t think she 
likes me by the way she spoke to me. And who is that extra- 
ordinary looking man, who looked at me as if I had been some 
strange thing out of the Jardin des Plantes ? ” 

“ The extraordinary looking man,” said Kate, laughing 
heartily, “is Matthew Lindisfarn, Esquire, commonly called 
Mr. Mat ; a cousin of Koll’s, also inseparable from, and very 
necessary to, the Chase. We could not get on without Mr. 
Mat. You will see him looking rather less extraordinary at 
dinner presently. And you will very soon get to like him too, 
as well as Miss Immy.” 

“ Is he a gentleman ? ” asked the stranger. 

“Margaret!” cried Kate, and her eyes flashed, and her 
colour mounted to her cheek® as she spoke ; “ Did I not tell 
you that his name is Lindisfarn ? Ask Lady Farnleigh, or the 
Dean, or old Brian Wyvill, or Dick Cox the ploughboy, whether 
he is a gentleman. But as I said before,” she continued, put- 
ting her arm round her sister’s waist and kissing her cheek, 
“ you must get to know us all and our ways, and then you will 
understand it all better, and come to be one of us. Of course 
it must all be very diflerent from life at Paris, and all very 
strange to you.” 

“ Oh, so different I ” said Margaret. 

“ And then there will be so many other people for you to 
know and like ; — Uncle Theophilus and Lady Sempronia ; — 
and first and foremost, my own darling Lady Farnleigh. And 
then I must introduce you to all our beaux 1 We have some 
very presentable ones, I assure you. And we shall have such 
lots to do. And now we must be thinking of dressing for 
dinner. You have to unpack your things.” 

“ Are there people coming to dine here to-day ? ” asked 
Margaret. 

“No, nobody. There will not be a soul but ourselves,” replied 
Kate. 

“ But must we dress then ? ” asked her sister ; “ why should 
we do so ? ” 

“ Oh, we always dress for dinner ; — that is, put on an evening 
dress, you know. Noll likes it. I think I had better ring 
for Simmons. She is our maid, between us two, you know. If 
you don’t like sotting to work to unpack, now, — and wo 
4 


50 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


should hardly have time before dinner, — I can lend you any- 
thing/^ 

And so a partial unpacking was done ; and amid perpetual 
running to and fro between the two bed-rooms by the door of 
communication ; — repeated declarations that they should not be 
dressed in time for dinner, and warnings from Simmons to the 
same effect, followed by fresh interruptions for admiration, 
criticism, and comparison, the dressing was at last done, and 
the two girls hurried down the great staircase, just as the last 
bell was ringing, leaving both their rooms strewed with a chaos 
of feminine properties, which Simmons declared it would be a 
week’s work to reduce to order. 

Of course, during the entirety of the couple of hours thus 
delightfully spent by the two sisters, the tongues of both of 
them were running a well contested race ; but it is hardly to 
be expected that a masculine pen should undertake to report even 
any disjecta merribmoi such a conversation. Simmons, however, 
though her tongue was not altogether idle, employed her eyes 
and ears the while with more activity. And a brief statement 
of her report, as made that evening to the assembled areopagus 
in the servants’ hall, may perhaps afford the judicious reader as 
much insight into the character of the newly arrived Miss 
Lindisfarn, as could be drawn from a more detailed account of 
the enormous mass of chatter that had passed between the two 
girls. 

Miss Simmons then announced it as her opinion that Miss 
Margaret was a deep one.” “ ’Twere plain enough to see,” 
she added, “ that her maxim was, ‘ What’s yours is mine ; and 
what’s mine’s my own.’ ” 

“Any ways she’s a dewtiful daater !” said old Brian Wyvill ; 
“ I never zeed in all my life, and that’s not zaying a little, — 
anything so bewtiful as when she were a zupplicating the 
Squoire like on the stone steps. ’Twere as good as any play ; 
and I’ve zeed a many of ’em in my time.” 

“For my part,” said rosy Betty, the housemaid, “I don’t like 
the colour of her ! ” 

“ I tell you all,” rejoined Simmons, speaking with the 
authority of a somewhat superior position, “ she is no more tu 
be compared tu our Miss Kate than Lindisfarn church is tu 
the cathedral of Silverton.” 

“ ’Twould be very unreasonable, and very unfair on her to 
expect she should be,” said Mr. Banting ; “ Miss Kate’s Lindis- 
farn bred ! 


LTNDISFAR^ CHASE. 


51 


Ay/* said the cook, and Lindisfarn fed ! What can yon 
expect from poor creatures that live on bread and water supe, 
and vrogs, with a bit of cabbage on Zundays ? ** 

The self-evident truth of this proposition was recognised by 
a chorus of “ Ay, indeed ! ’* 

“ She’s a sweet pretty lass, anyway,” said Thomas Tibbs the 
coachman ; “ and she were Lindisfarn born, if she weren’t 
Lindisfarn bred. And there’s a deal in blood.” 

“ Ay ! there be,” said Dick Wyvill the groom, a son of old 
Brian. “But pretty much depends on the way they ai'C 
broke.” 

Meanwhile the dinner in the parlour had passed a little 
heavily. Notwithstanding the near relationship of the new- 
comer, all the party were conscious of a certain slight degTee 
of restraint. Miss Immy was nervously afraid that her 
domestic arrangements might fail in some way or other to 
satisfy the requirements and tastes of her Parisian niece. She 
had held a long consultation with the cook respecting the pro- 
duction of some sample of presumed French cookery ; and no 
pains had been spared in the preparation of a squat-looking 
lump of imperfectly baked dough, which appeared on the table 
under the appellation of a vol-au~vent. And Miss Immy was 
rather disappointed, though at the same time reassured and 
comforted as to the future, when Miss Margaret, utterly 
declining to try the vol-au-vent, made an excellent dinner on a 
slice of roast-beef, only requesting her Papa to cut it from the 
most underdone part, and rather shocked all present by observ- 
ing that she “loved it bleeding.” 

Hannah the cook gave the untouched vohau-vent entire to 
Dick the ploughboy, and drew the most favourable auguries as 
to Margaret’s rapid physical, moral, and intellectual improve- 
ment, when she heard of the manner in which that young lady 
had preferred to dine. 

Nevertheless, the dinner, as has been said, passed rather 
heavily. The Squire himself was not without anxiety as to 
the possibility of making his Parisian-bred daughter comfort- 
able, happy, and contented with all at Lindisfarn. And Mr. 
Mat was tormented by suspicions that the new member of the 
family might turn out to be “ fine,” and that Paris airs might 
be even worse than London ones. And Margaret herself was 
labouring’ under the influence of that indefinable sense of 
uneasiness which the Italians well call “ subjection.”^ She had 
that unpleasant feeling towards Mr. Mat which arises from the 
4—2 


52 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


consciousness of having greatly erred in one’s estimate of the 
social position of anybody, and perhaps, for ought one can tell, 
manifested one’s mistake. It would have given me a very 
favourable opinion of the young lady’s gentle breeding, if she 
had at once discovered that Mr. Mat, as seen in his green 
uoat and buff gaiters, was to all intents and purposes a 
gentleman. But it would be hard to blame her too severely 
for having mistaken him for a gamekeeper. As to her father, 
she seemed to feel more strongly than ever the utter impos- 
sibility of calling him “ Noll.” It appeared to her that she 
had never seen so striking an impersonation of aristocratic 
and respect-compelling dignity ; — and she was not far wrong. 

The evening, too, passed slowly ; and at a very early hour it 
was voted nem. con., that the traveller must be tired, and must 
be wanting to go to bed. But there was one matter which had 
already given Margaret much pain two or three times during 
this her first afternoon in her father’s house ; and when, as 
they were all taking their candlesticks to go to bed, an oppor- 
tunity occurred of adverting to the subject, she was determined 
to attempt a remedy for the evil while it might yet be not 
incurable. 

“ Good night, Margy, my darling, and God bless thee ! ” said 
her father, putting one hand fondly on her head, and kissing 
her on the forehead. 

“ Good night. Miss Margy. If you over-sleep yourself I’ll 
give you a rouse in the morning with the dogs under your 
window ; ” said Mr. Mat. 

“ Good night, Margy dear. I trust your bed and all will 
be as you like it, and that you will sleep well,” said Miss 
Immy. 

And “ Come along, Margy dear ! We shan’t get to bed 
before we have had some more talk. I’ll be bound,” said 
Kate. 

The utterers of all these kindly “good-nights” had little 
notion that they were inflicting so many stabs in the heart of 
the object of them. But so it was ; and the reiterated blows 
were more th«an she could bear. Was her migration au fond 
du province to involve a transformation of herself into a dairy- 
maid, that she should be called “Margy It was too odious. 
It would be “Mag” next ! She could not bear it. And then 
before strangers too ; they would no doubt do the same ! 
Before d&s jeunes gens ! She should sink into the earth. So 
while the tears gathered in her fine eyes, — “ tears from the 


LINDISFAUN CHASE. 


53 


deptli of some divine despair/’ — she looked round on the blank 
faces of the little circle gathered about her, and clasping her 
hands in an attitude of unexceptionable elegance, exclaimed in 
tones of the most touching entreaty, — 

“Oh ! call me Marrguerrwite ; — not that horrid name. My 
father ! my sister ! dear friends ! call me Marrguerrwite ! ” she 
said, uttering the word in a manner wholly unattainable by 
insular organs. 

The little party looked at each other in blank dismay, while 
the suppliant continued to hold her hands clasped in a sort of 
circular appeal. 

“ My love,” said the Squire, “ you. shall be called any way 
you like best. Let it be Margaret ; but I’ll be shot if I can 
say it as you do, not if ’twas to save my life.” 

“To my thinking, ‘Margy’ is quite a pretty name,” said 
Mr. Mat, more confirmed than ever in his suspicions of latent 
“ finery.” 

“But, sissy darling,” said Kate, laughing and putting her 
arm caressingly round her sister’s waist, “ I am as bad as Noll. 
I could not say the name as you say it, not if I were to put a 
hot chestnut in my mouth every time! But I’ll never say 
* Margy ’ again. Let me say Margaret 1 ” ^ 

“ I think that people ought to be called as they like best,” 
said Miss Immy. “ I’ve been called Miss Immy nearly four- 
score years ; and I should not like to be called anything else. 
So I shall always call her ‘ Margy sweet,’ since that is what 
she likes best 1 ” 

And Miss Immy toddled off, holding her flat candlestick at 
arm’s length in front of her, and shaking her head in a manner 
that seemed to be intended to express the most irrevocable 
determination. 


LINDISFARN CHASE)# 


- 64 


CHAPTER VI. 

WALTER ELLINGHAM. 

Lady Farnleigh had asked Kate, as the reader may pos- 
sibly remember, to be sure to ride over to Wanstrow not later 
than the next day but one after the arrival of her sister. But 
on the morrow of the evening spoken of in the last chapter, 
Kate heard her godmother’s cheery ringing voice in the hall, 
asking for her before she had left her bedroom. 

She was just about doing so, and hurrying down stairs to 
be in time to tell the servants not to ring the breakfast-bell, 
for her sister was still sleeping, and she would not have her 
wakened, when she found Lady Farnleigh in the hall in her 
riding-habit. 

‘‘What, Kate turned sluggard! you too? We shall have 
the larks lying a-bed till the sun has aired the world for them 
next. I doubted whether I should be in time for breakfast; 
has the bell rung ? ” 

“Ko. And I want to prevent them from ringing it this 
morning. Margaret is still fast asleep, and I won’t let her 
be waked. She had a fatiguing journey of it, you know.” 

“ But it’s past nine o’clock, child. Our new sister must have 
a finely cultivated talent for sleeping. You were not late, I 
suppose ? ” 

“ To tell you the truth we were rather late, — that is, she and 
I were. We had so much to talk of to each other, you know. 
How good of you to vide over this morning, you good fairy of 
a godmamma 1 ” 

“ And like the fairies, I get the bloom of the day for my 
pains. Such a ride 1 It is the loveliest morning.” 

“ I must send to tell Koll and the others that there is to bo 
no bell this morning, or else they’ll be waiting for it. And 
then we’ll g’o to breakfast. You must bo ready for yours.” 

“ Sha’n’t be sorry to get it. I had no thought of riding over 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


55 


to-day, you know ; but last night I made up my mind to do 
so, for a whole chapter of reasons.” 

“Of which any one would have been sufficient, I should 
hope.” 

“ Nevertheless you shall have them all. In the first place, 
I could not restrain my impatient curiosity to see what our new 
sister is like. In the next place, I thought that perhaps she 
might ride over with you to-morrow. And in that case, it 
would be more salon las convenances^ — and we must be upon 
our P’s and Q’s with our visitor from Paris, you know, — that I 
should call first upon her. It is not the usual hour for a morn- 
ing call, it is true ; but no doubt she will consider that the 
mode du pa^s.” 

“ She will consider that you are the kindest and best of fairy 
godmothers ! ” 

“But I am no godmother of hers, you know, fairy or mortal. 
But you have not heard all my reasons for coming yet ; I am 
come to ask permission to introduce to you an old and valued 
friend.” 

“You are joking! As if there was any need of your asking 
permission to bring anybody here 1 ” 

Nevertheless, I choose upon this occasion to ask permission ; 
— your father’s at all events. Miss Kate, even if I am to take 
yours as a matter of course.” 

“As if Noll would not be just as much surprised at your 
asking as I can be 1 ” 

“ Nevertheless, I say again, I choose in this case to let you 
all know who and what the person is that I propose to bring 
to you, before I do so.” 

“ Is he something so very terrible then ? ” 

“ I had not said that it was a ‘ he ’ at all. Miss Kate. How- 
ever, you are right. It is a ‘ he.’ And as for the terribleness 
of him, that you must judge for yourself. I have told you 
that it is one in whom I am greatly interested.” 

“And surely that makes all other information on the subject 
unnecessary.” 

“ Thanks, Kate, for thinking so. But I don’t think so. Did 
you ever hear of Lord Ellingham ? ” 

“ I have seen the name in the debates in the House of Lords, 
but that is all.” 

“ Lord Ellingham has been a widower many years ; and it is 
a long time since I have seen him. But his wife was the 
dearest friend I ever had, — not dearer, perhaps, than your 


5G 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


mother, Kate ; but at all events an older friend. She was the 
friend of my girlhood, and I lost her before I came to live in 
this part of the country. She left her husband with four 
young sons. The gentleman I purpose asking your father’s 
permission to bring here, is the third of these. Lord Elling- 
ham, I should tell you, is very far from being a wealthy man, 
— and his third son is a very poor one, pretty nearly as de- 
pendent on his own exertions for his daily bread, as any one of 
your father’s labourers. You see, therefore, that my friend 
Walter Ellingham is by no means what match-making mammas 
call an ‘eligible’ young man. He has not been found eligible 
for much, either, poor fellow, by his masters, my Lords of the 
Admiralty. His father is a leading member of the Opposition, 
— though of course that can have nothing to do with it. The 
fact is, however, that at thirty years of age, Walter Ellingham, 
‘ Honourable ’ though he be, is but a lieutenant in His Majesty’s 
navy; and thinks himself fortunate in having obtained the 
command of a revenue cutter, stationed on our coast here. I 
found a letter when I got home yesterday evening, telling me 
all about it. He hopes to be able to come up to Wanstrow 
the day after to-morrow ; and as I daresay we shall frequently 
see him during the time he is stationed here, I purpose bring- 
ing him over to you. And that is the third reason for my 
morning ride.” 

“ But you haven’t said a word, you mysterious fairy god- 
mother, to explain why you thought it necessary to ask a special 
permission to make us this present. Of course you will send 
him up to Lindisfarn in a pumpkin drawn by eight white mice, 
with a grasshopper for coachman. And I do hope he’ll have a 
very tall feather in his cap ! ” 

“ Suffice it that in the plenitude of my fairy wisdom, I did 
choose to ask permission before starting the pumpkin. As for 
the feather in his cap, I have little doubt that it will come in 
due time. It is some years since I have seen Walter, but from 
my remembrance of him, I should be inclined to prefer some 
other trade to that of a smuggler on the Sillshire coast just at 
present. But what about this breakfast, Kate ? ” 

“ I must go and look after Miss Immy. The event of yester- 
day has put us all out of our usual clockwork order, I think. 
I daresay Miss Immy is deep in speculation as to the modes and 
times at which French people get up and get their breakfasts.” 

“ I shall go and speak to the Squire by myself. I suppose I 
shall find him in the study?” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 57 

“ Yes, do. And tell him he may come to breakfast without 
waiting for the bell this morning.’’ 

So Lady Farnleigh made her way to the sanctum which 
country gentlemen will persist in calling their “ study,” for the 
purpose of having five minutes’ conversation with the Squire, 
on the subject which was uppermost in her mind, in a rather 
graver tone than that which she had used in speaking to Kate ; 
and the latter went to discover the cause of such an unprece- 
dented event as the non-appearance of Miss Immy in the break- 
fast-room exactly as the clock over the stables struck nine. 

It was very nearly a quarter past that hour, when the family 
party, with the exception of the new-comer, met in the break- 
fast-room. 

“ Why, Miss Immy ! it’s near a quarter past nine, as I am a 
living man,” cried the Squire. “We shall begin to think that 
you are getting old, if you break rules in this wayl” 

“ Not so old by a quarter of an hour as you make me out, 
Mr. Lindisfarn ! ” said Miss Immy, rattling the teacups about. 
“ The clock is ever so much too fast.” 

“ I daresay the sun got up a little before his time when he 
saw it was such a lovely morning.” 

“ You know I am always in the room by nine o’clock, Mr. 
Lindisfarn ; ” reiterated Miss Immy, who would have gone to 
the stake rather than admit that she was late. 

“ Always ! It shall be always nine o’clock when you come 
into the breakfast-room ; as it’s always one o’clock in Parson 
Mayford’s parish out on the moor when the Parson is hungry. 
The clerk sets the church clock every day by his Reverence’s 
appetite : and they say there’s no parish in the moor keeps 
such good time.” 

“ I think I must get Mr. Mayford to come and stay with me 
while at Wanstrow,” said Lady Farnleigh, “for our Wanstrow 
clocks are always at sixes and sevens.” 

“Ah! but the Wanstrow air is not so keen as it is on the 
moor. Parson’s appetite would be slower in getting its edge ; 
and your Ladyship would be half an hour behind time at least,” 
said Mat. 

“ I should get you to calculate the difference, and work out 
the mean time accordingly, Mr. Mat; will you be my astro- 
nomer ? ” 

“You mean gastronomer, godmamma ! That would be more 
what would be needed for the business in hand,” said Kate. 

“ I wonder when Margy will be down. No, I mustn’t say 


58 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


that,” cried the Squire, correcting himself. “Poor lass, I 
wouldn’t vex her for the world.” 

“Yex her! what should vex her?” inquired Lady Farn- 
leigh. 

“ She don’t like being called Margy,” explained Kate ; “ we 
quite annoyed her, all of us, by calling her Margy. She has 
been used to be called Marguerite. And I am afraid I hurt 
her last night by laughing at her French pronunciation of it — 
which was very silly of me. But we put it all right after- 
wards.” 

“ And you were half the night in doing it. I’ll bet a wager,” 
said the Squire ; “ and that’s why she can’t get tip this morn- 
ing.” 

“Yes, we were rather late. Just think how much we have 
to talk about,” said Kate. 

“And no time except last night to do it in,” laughed the 
Squire. 

“ And she must be tired after her journey, poor lass,” said 
Mr. Mat. 

“ I daresay she is stirring by this time,” said Kate ; “ I will 
go and look for her.” 

“ I am going into Silverton ; has anybody any commands ? 
said Mr. Mat. 

“ Of course you will call in the Close ; and tell them she is 
come. Say that we shall come in to-morrow,” answered Kate. 

“ I’ll take the dogs, and go with you as far as the brook,” 
said the Squire. 

So the gentlemen took themselves off ; Miss Immy toddled 
off to her usual domestic avocations, and Lady Farnleigh was 
left alone in the breakfast-room, while Kate ran up stairs to 
look for her sister. 

In a very few minutes she returned, bringing down Miss 
Margaret with her into the breakfast-room, where she was 
presented in due form to Lady Farnleigh. Margaret executed 
a courtesy, with proper eyelid manege to match, to which Mr. 
Turveydrop, or any other equally competent master of “ deport- 
ment,” would have awarded a crown of laurel on the spot. 

“ You have had plenty of warm-hearted welcoming to Lin- 
disfarn, but you must let me say welcome to Sill shire. Mar- 
guerite ; for ‘ we Zillshire volk,’ as Mr. Mat loves to say, look 
upon Sillshire as a common possession, of which we are all 
uncommonly proud,” 

“It is a nice country j I am sure of it, madame, my 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 69 

lady/^ said Margaret, correcting herself, and blushing pain- 
fully. 

“Oh, you must not ‘my lady’ me; Kate here calls me all 
sorts of names, — very bad ones sometimes ! ” said Lady Farn- 
leigh, with mock gravity. 

Margaret threw her fine eyes, eloquent with surprised and 
sorrowful reproachfulness, on her sister. 

“ But then,” continued Lady Farnleigh, as she shot, on her 
side, a glance of shrewd observation on Margaret, “ Kate has a 
sad habit of calling names.” 

“ Madame de Bonneville strictly forbade me ever to do such 
a thing,” rejoined Margaret j “ she always said that there was 
nothing more vulgar.” 

“We must send Kate to the school where ‘them as learns 

manners pays twopence extra,’ and pay the twopence for 

her ! ” said Lady Farnleigh, with a queer look at Kate ; while 
Margaret opened her magnificent large eyes to their utmost 
extent, in utterly mystified astonishment. 

“ But however we call one another,” continued Lady Farn- 
leigh, changing her tone, “ we must learn, my dear Miss Lin- 
disfarn, to be very great friends; for your poor dear mother 
loved me, and I loved her very dearly. Love between you aind 
me is a matter of inheritance.” 

“ You are very good, madame. I never had the happiness to 
know my sainted mother,” said Margaret with a sigh, the pro- 
fundity of which was measured with the most skilful accuracy 
to the exact requirement of the nicest propriety on the 
occasion. 

“ Here comes some hot coffee for you, Margaret dear,” said 
Kate. “We all take tea, but Miss Immy thought that you 
probably took cofiee ; and here is some of our famous Sillshire 
cream. Now what will you have to eat? a fresh egg, warranted 
under Miss Immy’s own sign-manual to have been laid this 
morning ? See, there is the dear old soul’s mark ! If the egg 
were to be taken from the nest to be put into the saucepan the 
next instant. Miss Immy would insist on marking it with the 
day of the month, before it was boiled.” 

“ Only a bit of bread, if you please,” replied the Parisian- 
bred girl. “ And I should like to have a little hot milk with 
my coffee, if I might.” 

“ Instead of our Sillshire cream ? You shall have what you 
like, darling, but we must keep it a close secret. What will 
Sillshire say?” 


60 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ I am afraid the cream is too rich. I always take coffee 
and milk and a bit of bread; — nothing else.’^ 

“ Ah ! Sillshire air will soon avenge your neglect of onr 
good things,” said Lady Farnleigh. “Do yon ride, Mar- 
guerite?” 

“ I have never been on a horse ; — Madame de E-enneville did 
not consider mounting on horseback in all respects desirable.” 

Lady Farnleigh and Kate exchanged glances involuntarily, 
and the former said, “ I daresay Madame de Kenneville may 
have been right, as regards Paris ; but you can understand, my 
dear, that it is of course a very different thing here. Kate and 
I ride a great deal ; and I hope you will ride with us. You 
must learn at once. Mr. Mat will be an excellent riding-master 
for you.” 

“ It would give me great pleasure to ride with you. Lady 
Farnleigh,” replied Margaret, with just the slightest perceptible 
accent on the “you;” “but I am afraid I should be very stupid 
at it.” 

“ Oh, you would soon learn, with Mr. Mat for your master,” 
rejoined Kate. 

“ Kate was to have ridden over to see me to-morrow,” pur- 
sued Lady Farnleigh, “ and I hoped that you would have come 
with her; but now it seems you are to go into Silverton 
to-morrow; and the day after — has Kate told you? — I am 
going to bring an old friend of mine to make acquaintance 
with you all here.” 

“ Ko, I have not told her yet,” said Kate. “ An accession to 

our rather limited assortment of beaux, Margaret ! Mr 

or Captain should I say ? ” 

“ Captain, by courtesy,” said Lady Farnleigh, “ though that 
is not his real rank in the Navy. But he is called Captain — 
the Honourable Captain Ellingham.” 

“ The Honourable Captain Ellingham. Is he the son of a 
Lord, then?” asked Margaret, who seemed remarkably well 
versed in such niceties of English social distinctions, for a young 
lady whose entire life had been spent in France. But it is to 
be presumed that Madame de Benneville had given her per- 
sonal care to that branch of her niece’s education. 

“Yes, Walter Ellingham is the son of Lord Ellingham; but 
for all that, he is a very poor man, Margaret,” replied Lady 
Farnleigh. 

“ Are Lords ever poor ? ” asked Margaret, with a surprised 
and somewhat disappointed expression of face. 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


61 


“ Yes, my dear ; a poor Lord is unfortunately a by no means 
unprecedented phenomenon,” replied Lady Farnleigh. “And 
what is still more lamentable, and still more to the purpose, 
when a Lord is poor, his third son is apt to be still poorer.” 

“And the Honourable Captain Ellingham is Lord Elling- 
ham’s third son ? ” asked Margaret. 

“Even so,” said Lady Farnleigh. 

“ Is the Mr. Falconer you were telling me of last night, Kate, 
a poor man too?” asked Margaret after a pause. 

“I should think not,” said Kate; “I don’t know at all. I 
never remember to have heard the subject alluded to. But he 
is old Mr. Falconer’s only child, and I should suppose that he 
must be rich.” 

“ Oh yes ! there is no mistake about that at all,” said Lady 
Farnleigh ; “Mr. Falconer the banker, is well known to be a 
very ‘ warm ’ man, and if you are not English enough yet, Mar- 
garet, my dear, to understand the meaning of that phrase, you 
will at least have no difficulty in comprehending what I mean 
when I say that Mr. Freddy Falconer is an extremely desirable 
^partV You will find that all the young ladies at Silverton, 
including your sister,” continued Lady Farnleigh, with an archly 
malicious look at Kate, “consider him such, and all the old 
ladies too except one.” 

“ You are always to pay implicit attention to all Lady Farn- 
leigh says, sister dear, when she talks common sense,” said 
Kate, “but you are never to pay the slightest attention to a 
word she utters when she has got her nonsense cap on. And 
if you are in any doubt upon the subject, you have only to ask 
me ; for I am her goddaughter, and know the ways of her.” 

“ That is calling me a fool, by implication, and you have been 
told, Kate, once this morning already, on the authority of 
Madame de Benneville,” said Lady Farnleigh gmsseyant in the 
most perfect Parisian style, “how vulgar it is to do so. But I 
am afraid you are incorrigible. What can we do to improve 
her manners, my dear ? ” 

“ I am sure I shall always be very happy,” began poor Mar- 
garet, dropping her eyelids, and speaking with a sort of purring 
consciousness of superiority. 

But Kate, who, as she had very truly said, knew the ways oi 
her godmother, and perceived with dismay that she was begin- 
ning already to conceive a prejudice against Margaret, hurried 
to rescue her from the damaging and dangerous position which 
she saw was being prepared for her. 


62 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


‘‘Now, you malicious fairy godmother, don’t be hypocritical. 
Ifc was you who told Margaret that I was in the habit of call- 
ing you bad names. What could she think ? And her remark 
thereon was very natural. Now I won’t let y-ou turn yourself 
all of a sudden into the shape of a great white cat, and hunt 
her, poor little mouse, all round the room. I can see by the 
look of you, that that is what you’re bent on.” 

“ What would !Madame de Renneville say to that ? ” exclaimed 
Lady Farnleigh, turning to Margaret with a look of appeal. 

“Never mind Madame de Renneville ” began Kate. 

“ Kate ! ” cried' Margaret, in a tone deeply laden with 
reproach, but skilfully modulated so as to seem uttered more in 
sorrow than in anger, and casting her eyes on her sister with 
an appealing look of warning, reproof, and tenderness com- 
bined. 

And “ Kate ! ” re-echoed Lady Farnleigh, in a similar tone, 
and with a similar look. 

It became very evident to Kate’s experienced perception, that 
her godmamma was getting dangerous, and was bent on mis- 
chief. But she was fully determined to prevent, or at all events 
not to contribute to her sister’s becoming the victim of it. It 
was as much as she could do to prevent herself from laughing 
at Lady Farnleigh’s last bit of parody. But biting her lips 
to preserve her gravity, she continued : — 

“ What I wanted to say, was to ask on what authority you 
include me among the young ladies who are so enthusiastic on 
the subject of Mr. Falconer’s eligibility.” 

“ Kate ! ” said her incorrigible ladyship again, in the same 
accent and manner as before. But having been admonished by. 
a look of entreaty from her goddaughter, administered aside, 
which she perfectly well understood, she said : — 

“Why, do you not think so? Does anybody not think so? 
Is he not very undeniably an eligible Margaret very 

judiciously asked, before making up her mind on the subject, 
whether he too was as poor as Walter Ellingham. But we, 
who are well informed on that point, can have no doubts on the 
subject. Why, old Mr. Falconer must be made of gold ; 
whereas my poor friend Walter has but one bit of gold belong- 
ing to him, to the best of my belief. There can be no doubt, 
I think, which is the eligible, and which is the ineligible man. 
It is clear enough, is it not, Margaret ? ” 

But Kate, who was very anxious that her sister should not 
put her foot into the spring-trap thus laid for her^ but who 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


63 


nevertheless feared, in a manner which she unquestionably 
would not have feared a few hours ago, that Margaret might, 
if left to herself, run a danger of doing so, once again hurried 
to the rescue, by saying : — 

“ One bit of gold ! What can you mean, you enigmatical 
fairy ? What is the one bit of gold that Captain Ellingham 
possesses, and how did he come by it ? ’’ 

“ Really I do not know how he came by it ; but I never 
knew him without it. He always carries it inside his waist- 
coat.” 

“What, a gold watch?” asked Margaret innocently. 

“ To be sure, a gold watch,” replied Lady Farnleigh ; “ what 
in the world else of gold could a man have thereabouts? How 
dull you are, Kate, this morning.” 

“ I always am dull at riddles ; but we all know that a man 
carries a heart inside his waistcoat ; and I suppose that is the 
article that your friend has of gold, as you say. I see, at all 
events, that he is a favourite of yours, godmamma.” 

“He is,” said Lady Farnleigh, briefly; “and you will all of 
you have an opportunity of judging,” she continued, “whether 
he deserves to be so, for your father has very kindly bidden me 
to bring him to dine here the day after to-morrow. And now, 
girls, I shall leave you ; for of course you want to be alone 
together. May I ask if Giles is there ? ” 

“ Yes. But come down with us to the stables, and mount 
there ? I want to show Birdie to Margaret.” 

Birdie was a beautiful black mare, nearly thorough-bred, 
which had been a present from Lady Farnleigh to her god- 
daughter ; and of all her treasures, it was the one which Kate 
valued the most, and was the most proud of. A competent 
judge would have found a long list of good points to admire in 
Birdie ; but even the most unskilled eye could not fail to be 
struck by the e.cceeding beauty of the coat, glossier than satin; 
by the fineness of the skin, as evidenced by the great veins in 
the neck showing through it ; by the dainty elegance of the 
legs and pasterns ; and above all, by the beauty of the small 
head, with its eyes, as keen, Kate used to say, as a hawk’s, 
and as gentle as a dove’s. 

Margaret was accordingly much struck by Birdie’s beauty, 
as the groom walked her about the stable-yard for the ladies 
to look at. 

“Oh, what a lovely creature!” she exclaimed; “I do not 
wonder that you aro fond of riding on such a horse as that. 


64 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Bat it would be a very different thing to ride on any one of 
these great clumsy looking beasts. I can never expect to have 
such a horse as that to ride ! ” lamented Margaret, as she very 
accurately figured to herself the charming picture she would 
make, mounted in a becoming amazon costume upon so showily 
beautiful a steed. 

“ You shall ride Birdie, sister dear, and welcome, as soon as 
you have made some little progress under Mr. Mat’s tuition ; 
l3ut I think you must begin with something a little steadier ; 
for my darling Birdie, though she is as gentle as a lamb, is apt 
to be a little lively, the pretty creature.” 

“ But I don’t like the look of the something steadier,” pouted 
Margaret. 

“ Nevertheless it is my advice, my dear,” said Lady Farn- 
leigh, “that you do not attempt to mount Birdie till Mr. Mat 
is ready to give you a certificate of competency. Birdie is not 
for every one’s riding.” 

“ But Kate can ride her,” returned Margaret, somewhat dis- 
contentedly. 

“ Ay ! but Kate, let me tell you,” said Lady Farnleigh, “ is 
about the best lady rider in the county. Good-bye, girls. You 
must give me an early day at Wans trow, my dear. When 
shall it be? why not Wednesday? I am to dine here on 
Friday, the day after to-morrow. Will you say Wednesday, 
Kate ? Make your father come if you can. If not, get Mr. 
Mat to come over with you. And come early.” 

“I do not think Papa will come,” said Kate, “but we shall 
be delighted. Mr. Mat shall drive Margaret in the gig, and I 
will ride.” 

“ That’s agreed then. Good-bye.” 

“ Now shall I show you the garden ? ” said Kate, after the 
two girls had watched Lady Farnleigh as she rode do\y'n 
towards the lodge till she was out of sight. 

“No, not now, I think. Let us go and finish unpacking 
and putting away my things. I have ever so many more 
things to show you. And besides, I want you to tell me all 
about this Mr. Falconer.” 

“ The all is soon told,” said Kate ; “ but first you tell me 
what you think of my godmother ; is she not a darling ? ” 

“I hardly know whether I like her or not,” said Margaret. 
“ I feel somehow not safe with her ; and I can’t quite make her 
out. One thing' was quite clear, that she was not well pleased 
with your calling her a fairy, and making fun of her in that 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


65 


way. Tell me,’’ added she musingly, after a pause, during 
which Kate had been pondering whether it would be better to 
attempt making her sister understand Lady Farnleigh a little 
better at once, or to leave it to time to do so ; “ tell me whether 
the six thousand pounds that you are to have from her — that 
is, a hundred and fifty thousand francs, is it not ? — are settled 
on you, or only given you by her will ? ” 

“ I declare I don’t know,” returned Kate, surprised ; ‘‘ I had 
never thought about it. Ko doubt Papa knows all about it ; 
why do you ask ? ” 

“ Oh ! only that the one is certain, and the other uncertain. 
That is all,” answered Margaret. 


END OF PART H. 


66 


LIHDKFAKN CHASE. 




CHAPTER VII. 

MY “things.” 

So the two girls — the Lindisfarn lasses, as Mr. Mat called 
them, the Lindisfarn co-heiresses, as they have been called in a 
preceding chapter — returned to the house. It may be as well, 
however, to explain before going any further, that they were 
not very accurately so called. They were in no legal sense co- 
heiresses to the Lindisfarn property; for the entail went no 
further than the male heir of Oliver, and, failing such, the 
male heir of his brother. Failing male heirs of both of 
these, the property was at the disposal of the Squire. But 
nobody had any doubt that his two daughters would inherit 
the property, as was natural, in equal proportions. Never- 
theless, it was in the Squire’s power to modify the disposition 
of it, in any manner he might think fit. The two girls, on 
Margaret’s proposition, as has been said, returned to their 
rooms to complete the delightful work of unpacking the 
Parisian sister’s wardrobe, which the dinner-hour had com- 
pelled them to leave in the midst on the previous evening. 

A rapid progress was made in the unpacking ; but the 
“ putting away,” did not proceed with equal celerity. There 
was all the difference that there is between destroying a theory 
or system, and re-constructing it. Pulling down, alas ! is 
always quicker and easier work than building up. And in the 
present instance the more laborious and less amusing task was 
left to Simmons. Of course Margaret had the most to 
show ; and then her things were Parisian “ things.” Toilettes 
and demi-toilettes, toilettes de halj and toilettes dii, hois^ toilettes do 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


67 


matin, and toilettes de soir ! A brilliant dioramic exhibition, 
illustrated, and varied by interspersed disquisitions and expla- 
nations of the glories and pleasures of the French metropolis. 

Kate’s wardrobe contained but one costume which was not 
outshone by anything in its own department belonging to 
that of her sister, and which attracted Margaret’s special in- 
terest and admiration — her riding habit and its appendages. 
Nothing would satisfy her but that Kate should put herself in 
complete riding-dress ; and when she had done so, Margaret 
insisted on trying on the habit herself. And then it 
appeared, and was specially noted and pointed out by the 
Parisian-bred girl, that her waist was a trifle slenderer than 
that of her sister ; which produced from Miss Simmons the 
observation, that there was not more difference than there 
should be for Miss Kate’s somewhat superior height ; and the 
judicially pronounced declaration, that “It have been considered. 
Miss Margaret, that Miss Kate’s figure, specially a horseback, 
is the perfectest thing as ever was seen ! ” 

“Don’t talk nonsense, Simmons! ” said Kate ; “but just take 
two or three pins, and see if you can pin up the habit so as to 
make it fit Margaret’s waist. There 1 ” she continued, as the 
handy servant accomplished the task, “ did anybody ever see a 
nicer figure for the saddle ? Now the hat, Margaret, just the 
least in the world on one side. That’s it. Oh, you must ride. 
You do not know how the dress becomes you !” 

“ Yes, I think I look well in it 1 ” said Margaret, admiring 
herself in a Psyche glass, as she spoke. “And it would be 
better, you know, in a habit made for me.” 

“And look, Margaret; I must teach you how to hold up 
your habit when you walk in it. Look here ! You should 
gather it in your right hand thus, so as to let it fall in a 
graceful fold ; do you understand ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; that is very easy,” said Margaret, walking across 
the room, and catching the mode of doing so gracefully, with 
admirable tact and readiness. “ If the riding were only as 
easy as that ! But Lady Farnleigh showed a leetle more of her 
boot in \Vtilking. I think one might venture just to let the 
instep be seen ; ” she continued, putting out, as she spoke, from 
under the heavy folds of the habit a lovely little slender foot in 
its exquisite Parisian hrodequin. 

‘■Oh you are beyond me, already, Margaret!” cried Kate, 
laughing ; “I never dreamed of considering the matter so 
artistically. But certainly, it would bo a pity to hide that 
5—2 


68 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


foot of yours more than need be. Only, darling, tliat cliarmtng 
little French boot would hardly be the thing for our Sillshire 
riding, let alone walking.” 

‘‘I can’t bear a thick boot,” said Margaret. “And Kate-, 
don’t you think that without being trop hcbsarde, one might put 
the hat just a soupqon more on the left side — so ? There, that 
is charming ! How well the black hat goes with the mat whitfv 
of my complexion ! Does it not, now ? ” 

And in truth, the figure at which both the girls, with 
Simmons behind them, were gazing in the large Psyche, wai 
as attractive an one as could well be imagined. 

Just as they were thus engaged, having let the day run away 
till it was near dinner-time, there came a tremendous thump at 
the door ; which made Margaret jump as if she had been 
struck, while it produced from Kate, to her sister’s no little 
dismay, a laughing “ Come in, Noll ! Come in, and see what 
we are about ! ” 

And in the next instant, the Squire, who had just returned 
from his shooting, was standing in .the midst of all the varied 
display of finery which occupied every chair and other piece of 
furniture in the room. 

“ Why, girls, you are holding a regular rag-fair ! What 
Margy — ret; is that you? I am glad to see that riding 
toggery makes part of your wardrobe. That is better luck 
than I looked for. And upon my word, you look very well in 
it very well ! ” 

“It is my riding-habit, Noll. Margaret was only trying it 
on ; does it not become her ? She must get one without loss 
of time.” 

“Unluckily I have never learned to ride. Papa,” saiA 
Margaret. 

“ Oh, we shall soon teach you here, my love. We’ll make a 
horsewoman of you, never fear ! I came up to tell you what I 
have been doing, girls. I asked Lady Parnleigh, you know, to 
bring her friend Captain Ellingham to dinner on Friday. 
Well, I thought it would be neighbourly to introduce him to 
some of the people at the same time. So I have 'asked the 
Falconers, father and son. I felPin with the old gentleman 
down at the Ivy bridge, looking to see if he could find any 
traces of the graves of some soldiers of the garrison of 
Silverton Castle, that he says were buried there at the time of 
the civil wars. And I told Mat to ask my brother and sister- 
in-law. She won’t come, of course, Mat is not returned yet ; 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


69 


but we shall know at dinner whether the Doctor can come. 
And as I was coming home by Upper Weston Coppice I met 
Mr. Merriton, the new man at the Friary, and asked him and 
his sister.” 

“ Why, we shall have quite a large party, Noll,” said Kate. 
‘‘Miss Immy will say that she has not notice enough to make 
due preparations.” 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! What preparations are needed, beyond 
having plenty of dinner ? I thought it a good opportunity 
to bring the people together and make acquaintance with these 
new folks. They are friends of the Falconers ; and he seems a 
very gentlemanlike sort of fellow.” 

The new people thus spoken of, were the owners, having 
quite recently become such — or rather, Mr. Merriton was the 
owner — of the small but exceedingly pretty and serviceable 
estate and mansion called the Friary, at Weston Friary. 
Arthur Merriton and his sister Emily had been the wards of 
the head of the firm who were Messrs. Falconer and Fish- 
bourne’s London correspondents ; and were the children of an 
English merchant, settled for many years in Sicily, by an 
Italian wife. They had been left orphans at an early age ; 
and had been, together with the very considerable fortune left 
by their father, under the care of the London banker since that 
time. It was only a year since Mr. Merriton had come of age. 
His sister was two years older, and they had recently come to 
live at the Friary, the purchase of which had been arranged 
and concluded on Mr. Merriton’s behalf, by Mr. Falconer, of 
Silver ton. 

“ How many does that make altogether ? ” asked Kate, intent 
on getting the subject into fit shape for presentation to the 
mind of Miss Immy. 

“ I have not counted noses,” answered her father ; “ but it 
can’t be such a large party after all.” 

“Let us see. We are five at home, two gentlemen and three 
ladies ; and Uncle Theophilus will make us up half-a-dozen, 
three and three. Lady Farnleigh and Captain Ellingham will 
make eight ; and Mr. Merriton and his sister ten ; and the 
gentlemen and ladies are still equal. But then come the two 
Mr. Falconers, and make us seven gentlemen to five ladies.” 

“ And that will do very well. We shall be four old fellows 
to three youngsters ; I and my brother, and Mat and old Fal- 
coner ; and young Falconer, Merriton, who seems little more 
than a lad, and Captain Ellingham.” 


70 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Lady Farnleigli did not seem to speak of him as nearly so 
young a man/^ replied Kate; “he will be half way between 
you seniors and the young men. She spoke of him more as a 
friend of her own standing.” 

“Well, her own standing is nothing so very venerable. But 
she mentioned the age of this Captain Ellingham. He is 
thirty; and Freddy Falconer is, I know, seven-and-twenty. 
So there is no such great difference.” 

“Ko,” said Kate; “that is very little difference. Only one 
has always been used to look on Freddy Falconer in the light 
of a young man, and a Captain in His Majesty’s Kavy seems 
such a grave and staid sort of personage.” 

“ Well, we shall see. But I protest against the mere count 
of years being considered to decide the question whether a man 
is old or not ; for if that be the case, you will be making me 
out to be old myself, next ! Well, I suppose it is pretty nearly 
time to go and dress for dinner.” 

Margaret, who had been apparently occupied during all this 
conversation between her father and Kate, with trying 
the effect of divers positions and modes of standing, as 
she continued to admire the becomingness of the riding- 
habit in the Psyche, had nevertheless lost no word of what 
had passed. And when the Squire left the room, she was 
engaged in meditating how far the words her sister had used in 
speaking of Mr. Frederick Falconer might be considered as 
corroboratory of the half-jesting accusation Lady Farnleigh 
had brought against Kate, in being included in the number of 
those who were inclined to consider that young gentleman as a 
very desirable 

“ Here, then,” she said, when her father was gone, “is another 
accession to your collection of Silverton beaux, according to 
what Papa says. Have you ever seen this Mr. Merriton, 
Kate?” 

“ Ko, never ; neither him nor his sister. But I had heard of 
them before. I fancy they are nice people. They are quite 
new-comers to Sillshire, and know nobody here but the 
Falconers.” 

“ Do they live in Silverton ? ” asked Margaret. 

“No, they have bought an estate at Weston Friary, — such a 
charming village down in the valley at the end of the water- 
meads, not more than a couple of miles above the town. One 
of our first excursions must be to Weston,’* 

“ What, to call on these people ? ” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


71 


I meant to see the village, it is such a pretty place. 
But now it will be necessary, of course, to call on the new- 
comers; and we can do that too. The Friary is a sweetly 
pretty house and grounds.’^ 

“ Is that the name of their place ? 

“ Yes. I believe it was a monastery once upon a time. If 
you want to win the heart of Uncle Theophilus or of old Mr. 
Falconer, on the spot, you have only to ask them to tell you all 
about it. Only they are quite sure to tell you different stories ; 
and you will mortally offend either of them, if you give cre- 
dence to the story of the other.” 

“ One must speak to them separately then,” said Margaret, 
apparently with all seriousness. “ But you said,” she con- 
tinued, “ that it was an estate that Mr. Merriton had bought ? ” 
“Yes, the estate is called the Friary estate from the name 
of the house. It is a small estate ; but full of such pretty 
bits of country. It is quite celebrated for its beauty in the 
county.” 

“ Then I suppose Mr. Merriton must be rich ; or at least a 
man of independent property ? ” 

“I suppose so,” answered Kate ; “but I have not heard any- 
one say anything on the subject.” 

And then Margaret divested herself of the riding-habit, 
after a last long and wistful look in the glass, and inwardly- 
registered vow that she would allow no disagreeables to inter- 
fere with her learning to ride as quickly as possible ; and the 
girls proceeded to dress for dinner. And that ceremony passed 
somewhat more pleasantly than it had done yesterday. Mar- 
garet delighted Mr. Mat by asking him if he thought he could, 
and kindly would, undertake the office of riding-master on her 
behalf ; and much talk passed between them on the subject. 
Then there was talk about the dinner-party on the day after 
the morrow. The Doctor, Mr. Mat brought word, would come. 
But Lady Sempronia excused herself, as usual, on the plea of 
indifferent health. And then the excursion into Silverton for 
the morrow was talked about and arranged. The Squire, who 
rarely was seen in Silverton High Street, except at times of 
Quarter Sessions, or other such-like occasions, excused himself ; 
and Mr. Mat declared also, that if his services were not wanted, 
he had much to do at home ; and none of his hearers were so 
unkind as to ask him what it was. Miss Immy, on the other 
hand, declared that it was absolutely necessary that she should 
go to Silverton, even it she were to go alone, with a view to 


72 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE. 


matters connected with the next day’s dinner. It would be 
absolutely necessary, she said, to send a message down to Sill- 
mouth, if they wanted a decent bit of fish ; and even so the 
people made a favour of it. For of late years all the best fish 
was sent off to London, in a way that used not to be the case 
when Miss Immy was young, and which she seemed to think 
involved much tyranny and overbearing injustice on the part of 
the Londoners against the “ Zillshire folk.” 

“ Come, Miss Immy,” said the Squire, apologetically: “the 
Londoners never refuse to let me have the pick of their market 
for my cellar.” 

“But fish is not wine; and wine is not fish;” said Miss 
Immy, distinguishing and separately emphasizing the two pro- 
positions by a distinct system, as it were, of little palsied shakes 
of the head applied to each of them. “ And I should think, 
Mr. Lindisfarn, that you were the only person who had ever 
supposed them to be so,” added the old lady, with much 
triumph. 

So it was arranged that the carriage should be ordered, and 
that the two young ladies should accompany Miss Immy, and 
should be deposited at the Doctor’s house in the Close, so that 
the new-comer might make acquaintance with her relatives, 
and also with Silverton, to any such extent as opportunity 
might be found for doing, while Miss Immy was driving about 
the town, intent on her household cares. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Margaret’s debut in the close. 

Thomas Tibbs, the coachman at the Chase, held as a funda- 
mental axiom, that any man as wanted to drive from the Chase 
to Silverton turnpike in less than an hour and twenty-five 
minutes, had not no business to sit behind a gentleman’s horses. 
If called on to pursue the subject, he was wont to do so after 
the same fashion of dialectic that Miss Immy had used with 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


73 


regard to the fish and the wine. “ A gen’elman’s carriage,” 
he would justly observe, “ is not His Majesty’s Mail ; and His 
Majesty’s Mail is not a gen’elman’s carriage — least ways not a 
gen’elman’s private carriage,” he would add, to avoid the possi- 
bility of leading to any unfavourable conclusion as to the 
gentility of the first gentleman in Europe. “ Whereby it’s not 
the value of five minutes you has to look to, but the condition 
of your cattle ; ” said Thomas Tibbs. The hill up from the Ivy 
bridge over the Lindisfarn brook to the turnpike that stood 
just where the city wall had once crossed the present road, was 
a very steep pitch ; and upon the whole, the hour and twenty- 
five minutes claimed for the work by Thomas Tibbs was not 
an unreasonable demand. His further unalterable allowance 
of five minutes from the turnpike to the door of Dr. Lindis- 
farn’s house in the Close may seem to have been more open to 
exception. But Thomas Tibbs, who would have looked down 
with intense contempt from the altitude of a superior civiliza- 
tion on the Celtic endeavour to hide inefficient poverty under 
false brag by “ keeping a trot for the avenue,” maintained that 
“any man who knew what horses was, knew the valley of 
bringing ’em in. cool : ” and nothing could tempt him to exceed 
the very gentlest amble, between the Silverton turnpike and 
the Canon’s door. 

Erom which circumstances it follows that, although the Lin- 
disfarn ladies had bustled over their breakfast in a manner 
that suggested the idea of a departure for the Antipodes, and 
Miss Immy had descended to the breakfast-room with her round, 
brown beaver hat and green veil on, and an immense parasol, and 
three or four packages in her hands ; and had entered the room 
giving a string of directions to Benson the housekeeper, as she 
walked ; notwithstanding all these efforts, the Cathedral service 
was over at Silverton, and Dr. Lindisfarn had returned to his 
study — it not being a Litany day — before the carriage from the 
Chase reached the Close. 

Miss Immy refused to alight at the Canon’s door, alleging 
that the number of commissions she had to execute would leave 
her not a minute to spare between that time and three o’clock : 
at which hour it was arranged that they were to leave Silver- 
ton, in order to be in time for the Squire’s dinner hour at the 
Chase, — five o’clock extended by special grace on occasion of 
family progresses to Silverton to half-past five, in consequence 
of its being every inch collar work, as Thomas Tibbs declared, 
from the Ivy bridge to the door of the Chase. The hour which 


?4 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE, 


Tibbs claimed as absolutely necessary for his horses to bait, 
Miss Immy purposed spending, as was her usual practice on 
similar occasions, with Miss Lasseron, the sister of a late Canon 
of Silverton. 

It was perfectly true that Miss Lasseron was the very old 
friend, and almost the contemporary of Miss Immy ; — true also 
that Miss Immy very much preferred the nice little dish of 
minced veal and tall ale-glass full of Miss Lasseron^s home- 
brewed amber ale, with which her friend never failed to regale 
her when she needed a luncheon in Silverton, to the bit of stale 
cake and glass of sherry that the Lady Sempronia was wont 
to produce on similar occasions. Nevertheless, I suspect that 
Miss Immy’s avoidance of the house in the Close, whenever she 
could decently do so, was in great part due to the small sympathy 
that existed between her and the Lady Sempronia. The latter 
dared not say in Sillshire that Miss Imogene Lindisfarn was an 
uneducated and vulgar old woman. But few who knew her, could 
have had any doubt that such was pretty accurately a correct 
statement of her real opinion. Miss Imogene, on her side, 
certainly thought, and did dare to say to anybody who cared to 
know her mind on the subject, that Lady Sempronia was a 
feckless and washed-out fine lady, and very stingy to boot. 
And the Silverton and Sillshire world were much inclined to 
accept and endorse Miss Immy’s opinion. Yet as regarded the 
latter part of the accusation, it was hardly a fair one. The 
Sillshire world did not know as well as the Lady Sempronia, 
that all her stinginess did not avail to bring Canon Lindisfarn’s 
account with Messrs. Falconer and Fishbourne to a satisfactory 
balance at the end of the year. And those who had a general 
knowledge of that fact, did not call it to mind on occasions 
when in justice to the lady they ought to have done so. It 
certainly was not Lady Sempronia’s stinginess which induced 
her to drive out, on the rare occasions on which she went out 
at all, in a shabby old one-horse vehicle, which really made a 
fly from the Lindisfarn Arms look smart by comparison. And 
when Miss Piper the milliner, who had her show-room over the 
shop of her brother the perfumer in the High Street, told ill- 
natured stories among her customers of the impossible feats 
she was required by Lady Sempronia to perform, in the way of 
producing accurate imitations of the new French fashions from 
materials that had already undergone more than one metamor- 
phosis, it can hardly be doubted that the poor lady would have 
preferred ordering a new silk had the choice of doing so been 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


75 


' open to her. It was all very well, as Lady Sempronia had been 
1 heard to say, for those to talk whose husbands cared for their 
j families more than for stones and old *bones, and all sorts of 
rubbish ; and who were content with reading what other people 
I had printed, instead of printing their own ! And no doubt 
j there was an amount of truth in these lamentations which 
ought to have obtained for them a greater degree of sympathy 
than was generally shown to Lady Sempronia. But she was 
not a popular person at Silverton. And all these things were 
‘‘ trials ” to her ladyship. Life indeed seemed to shape itself 
to her feeling and mode of thought as one great and perpetual 
“ trial ; ” and upon the whole, she seemed generally to be getting 
i the worst of it. 

Kate and Margaret were shown into a long low drawing- 
room, looking from its three windows into the extremely pretty 
[ garden behind the house. There was an old-fashioned drab- 
coloured Brussels carpet on the floor, an old-fashioned drab- 
; coloured paper on the walls ; and old-fashioned drab moreen 
curtains bound with black velvet hung on each side of three 
’ windows. Nevertheless, it was, in right of the outlook into 
the garden and up the exquisitely-kept turf on the steep bank 
that ran up to a considerable height against the fragment of 
' grey old city wall, and was topped by a terrace-walk running 
‘ under the rose-clothed southern face of it, — in right, I say, of 
these advantages. Lady Sempronia’s drawing-room was a pretty 
and pleasant room ; though Kate used to say that it always 
i used to make her feel afraid of speaking above her breath, 
when she came into it. The world, she said, seemed always 
asleep there. 

There was nobody in the room when the two girls entered it ; 
and the servant went to call his mistress. 

“ Oh, que c^est triste I exclaimed Margaret, as she looked 
around. ‘‘I should die if I were made to inhabit such a room. 
C^est d/une tristesse ecrasante ! ’ * 

“ And I am afraid poor Aunt Sempronia does not live a very 
gay life in it. Yet I do not dislike the room. Look at the 
garden. Can anything be conceived more peacefully lovely ? ” 
said Kate.’^ 

‘‘ G’est d mourir ennui ! ” said Margaret. The two girls 
were standing looking out of the window with their backs to 
the door, as Margaret spoke ; and had not heard the noiseless 
step of Lady Sempronia, as she crossed the room towards 
them. It was evident that she must have heard Margaret’s 


76 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


criticism on lier dwelling* ; and the utterer of it felt no little 
embarrassment at the consciousness that such must have been 
the case. But as it seemed, she could not have presented her- 
self to her aunt in a manner more congenial to that lady’s 
feelings. 

Margaret blushed deeply, as she performed to Lady Sem- 
pronia one of her usual elaborate courtesies ; while Kate spoke 
a few words of introduction. But her aunt, taking her kindly 
by the hand, said : — 

“ Come and sit by me on this sofa, my love. It is a pleasure 
to find at least one member of the family who can sympathise 
with some, at all events, of the trials I am called on to struggle 
against. It is as you say, Margaret ; c^est a mourir d' ennui ! 
Bufc, unfortunately, ennui kills slowly. It has done its work 
on me in the course of years, my dear. And yet Kate here 
bids me be cheerful — cheerful in such an atmosphere as this ! ” 

Lady Sempronia certainly did look like one on whom ennui, 
or some such form of mental atrophy, had, as she said, done its 
work. Miss Immy called it looking “washed out; ’’and per- 
haps that phrase may give as good an idea of Lady Sempronia’s 
appearance as her own more refined one. Hers was a tall and 
remarkably slender figure, with a long face, the thinness of 
which was made yet thinner in appearance by two long cork- 
screw curls of very dull unshining looking light brown hair 
hanging on either side of it. She had a high bridged Boman 
nose, and a tall narrow forehead, adorned by a “ front,” which 
life- weariness had caused to be so unartistically put on, that it 
hardly made any pretence of being other than it was. 

“ There can be no doubt that excess of quietude is often very 
trying to the spirits,” replied Margaret sympathisingly. 

“ Trying ! ” exclaimed Lady Sempronia ; “ indeed you may 
say so ! Few persons in my station of life have had so many 
trials as I have, my dear niece. But you, too, have had your 
trials. It must have been a very severe one to be called on to 
relinquish Paris to come and live in this remote solitude ; — a 
very great trial. Do you feel the change very painfully ? ” 

“ The change is a very great one, certainly ; ” said Margaret, 
who remembering that her sister was present, though Lady 
Sempronia seemed to have forgotten it, could not respond as 
completely to her aunt’s invitation to bemoan herself as she 
would have been happy to do under other circumstances. 

“You will find, my dear, as life goes on, that it is made up 
of a series of trials. Those who expect to find it otherwise,” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


11 


continued the melancholy lady, with a mild glance of reproach 
at Kate’s face, which was most unsympathetically beaming 
with health and brightness and happiness, — “ those who expect 
to find it otherwise, are but laying up for themselves a harvest 
of delusions and disappointments. There is to me no more 
melancholy sight than that of inexperienced youth, rushing 
forward, as it were, to meet the inevitable trials that await it, 
in utter unconsciousness of its fate.” 

“Why that is just what the poet says. Aunt ! ” cried Kate, 
with a smile entirely undimmed by any terror at the tremen- 
dous prospect before her. 

“ ‘ Alas ! unconscious of tlieir doom 
The little victims play. 

IsTo sense have they of ills to come ; 

No care beyond to-day.’ ” 

“ I am glad to see that you are acquainted with the lines, 
my dear. They are very, very sad ones. You remember how 
the poet goes on : — 

‘ Yet see, how all around them wait 
The ministers of human fate, 

And black Misfortune’s baleful train ! ’ 

^ The following stanzas are very instructive. And the whole 
I poem — it, is very short, too short, indeed — would be exceedingly 
! advantageous reading for a young person, every night before 
I going to bed.” 

I “The last lines,” continued Kate, “are particularly im- 
1 pressive : — 

' ‘ Since sorrow never comes too late, 

[i And happiness too quickly flies, 

Ij where ignorance is bliss, 

’Tis folly to be wise ! ’ ” 

|l “ Words uttered in the bitter irony of a broken heart,” said 
I Lady Sempronia, with a profound sigh ; “ and which it would 
I be folly indeed to take au sSrleux ! Tell me, my, dear,” she 
] added, turning to Margaret, “ do you not feel the change from 
] the scenes in which you passed your childhood, to the com- 
ii parative solitude of your present home, very trying to your 
spirits ? ” 

“ I was certainly very happy in Paris ; and Madame de 
Kenneville and the Baron were very kind to me,” said Mar- 

I garet ; while a tear trembled in her fine eyes, gathered there 
not by the words which had been spoken, not by any ideas 


78 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


called to her mind by them, so much as by the deep tragic 
tones and profoundly dispirited manner of her aunt. It was a 
tribute to Lady Sempronia’s sorrows and to her eloquence, to 
which that lady was keenly sensible ; and she already began to 
feel that her newly discovered niece was a highly cultivated and 
charming girl, on whom she might count for sympathy with 
her in her many sorrows. 

Lady Sempronia was very fond of talking of these : — indeed 
she rarely spoke much on any other subject. But it was ' 
remarkable that she never spoke of the one great sorrow, i 
which really was such as to justify her in considering her 1 
entire life to have been overshadowed by it. She never alluded 
to her lost son. That grief was too real, too sacred for idle 
talk. But of her poverty, her bodily ailments, the misbehaviour 
of the Canon in various ways, his absence of mind, his extra- 
vagance, his antiquarian tastes, of the troubles arising from the 
turpitude of all sorts of servants, she would discourse at any 
length. 

“And now, my dear,” she said, after some further indulgence 
in her usual slipshod talk on the miseries of the world in 
general, and of her own lot in it in particular, “ now I sup- 
pose you are anxious to make acquaintance with your uncle, 
the Canon. The meeting with a hitherto unknown relative 
may, in some exceptional cases, be the finding of a congenial 
and sympathetic heart. But it is far more likely to prove a 
severe trial.” Margaret could not help being struck, as her 
aunt spoke, with the justness of her observation ; but she was 
not prepared for the candour of what was about to follow. 

“ It would not be right,” continued the Lady Sempronia, “if 
I were to omit to warn you that the meeting with your uncle 
is likely to prove a severe trial.” 

“ Dear Aunt,” expostulated Kate, “ I am sure Margaret will . 
love Uncle Theophilus as much as we all do, when she gets to 
know him.” 

“ My dear ! ” said Lady Sempronia, turning on her with some ; 
little sharpness, “ It is my practice always, both for myself and | 
for those who are dear to me, to prepare against disappoint- 
ments. It is long since I have been disappointed in anything, 
and a certain amount of peace of mind may be thus attained. 
With regard to your uncle, my dear Margaret, we who do know 
him, as your sister says, are perfectly well aware of the many ! 
great and good qualities which he possesses ; but it is never 
theless true, that your first introduction to him may prove a | 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


79 


trial. Dr. Lindisfarn is a very learned man — a man of im- 
mense erudition ! Nevertheless, when he comes in to dinner 
with his surplice on, under the impression that he is entering* 
the choir for morning service, it is a trial. I confess that 
to me it is a trial. Your uncle has acquired the high esteem 
of the whole county, and has received the public thanks 
of the Chapter for his contributions in time, in knowledge, 
and in money, to the repair of the ceiling of the Cathedral 
transept. But when I reflect that a small portion of the 
' money so spent would have supplied — among many other 
matters — the new carpet, which you see, my dear, is so sadly 
needed for the drawing-room, it is, I do not deny it, a severe 
trial. When I speak to the Doctor upon any subject of 
domestic interest, and he answers me as if I were talking of 
things or people of five hundred years or more ago, I do own 
that it is a very painful trial. In short, my dear, it were weak 
to conceal from you that in all connected with Dr. Lindisfarn 
(a very deep and prolonged sigh inserted here), there are many 
and very grievous trials. And this being the case, it was, I 
think, my duty to warn you, that you would find it to he the case. 
The duty of doing so has been a trial to me ; but I would not 
shrink from it.’’ 

“ It has been very kind of you. Aunt ; and I assure you that 
I am not insensible to it ; ” murmured Margaret. 

“I suppose Uncle Theophilus has his trials too, for that 
matter,” said Kate. 

“ I have no reason to think Dr. Lindisfarn exempted from 
the common lot of humanity,” returned Lady Sempronia, with 
a certain degree of acidity in her manner, yet in a tone of 
extreme meekness, such as might be supposed the result of 
I long suffering. “ Shall we go to the study ? ” she asked ; 

“ Dr. Lindisfarn does not like to be called into the drawing- 
! room.” 

! So the three ladies proceeded together to the Canon’s study. 

’ To do this they were obliged to return from the drawing-room 
into the hall. For though the study adjoined the latter, there 
was no door of communication between them. It was a very 
long room, occupying the entire depth of the house, and 
lighted by one large bow window looking into the garden, and 
by a small window at the opposite end of it looking into the 
Close. • The door opening into the hall was on the left hand of 
one looking towards the garden, and was near the Close end of 
the room, so that it was but a step from the hall-door to that 


80 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


of the study. The fireplace was on the opposite side of the 
room, not in the middle of the wall, but much nearer the 
garden end'; and a double bookshelf, or rather two book- 
shelves back to back, stood out about two-thirds of the space 
across the room, so as to partially divide it into two rooms, 
of which that towards the garden was nearly twice as large as 
the other. Those dividing shelves abutted against the wall 
opposite the door, so that a person entering could see the entire 
length of the room ; but one sitting near the fire could not see 
the door, nor be seen from it. The fireplace was merely an 
open hearth, prepared for burning wood, and furnished with a 
pair of antique-shaped andirons ; for the Canon chose to burn 
exclusively wood in his study, despite the discontent and re- 
monstrances of Lady Sempronia, who declared that the room 
could be well warmed with coal at very much less cost than it 
was half warmed with wood. The question of the compara- 
tive expense had formed the subject of many a long dispute 
between them, till the Doctor, who in defence of his own posi- 
tion, had drawn up an exceedingly learned and exhaustive 
memoir on the progressive difierence between the cost of wood 
and coals from the earliest use of the latter fuel, had spoken on 
one occasion of the expediency of giving his monograph to the 
public, as one of the publications of the Sillshire Society. 
From that time forth the Lady Sempronia, who knew too well 
that the cost of printing the monograph would more than sup- 
ply the study fire with wood to the end of the Doctor’s days, 
had been silent on the subject. 

The exceeding length of the room made the lowness of the 
ceiling, which the study shared with all the other rooms on the 
ground floor, seem still lower ; and the quantity of heteroge- 
neous articles with which the space was encumbered, increased 
the lumber-room like appearance which, on first entering, im- 
pressed itself on a visitor’s mind. 

Immediately in front of the door by the side of the window 
looking into the Close, there was a lay figure ; on the shoulders 
of which were the Doctor’s surplice, hood, and scarf, and on its 
head his trencher cap. This somewhat startling ecclesiastical 
presentation was a device of the Doctor’s own invention, the 
object of which was to prevent him, if possible, from forgetting 
to take off the above-mentioned canonicals when he returned 
from morning and evening service in the choir. Again and again 
it had occurred to him to proceed directly to whatever occu- 
pation in his study was uppermost in his mind — and had been 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


81 


so, it may be feared, during the hour spent in the choir — with- 
out divesting himself of any of these garments. And as the 
occupations were often of a nature involving contact with 
dusty tomes and dustier relics of antiquity ; and, as even when 
this was not the case, the Doctor finding* the folds of his sur- 
I plice under his hand very convenient for the purpose, was apt 
' to wipe either his pen or the dust with them, as the case might 
1 require, — considerable inconvenience arose from the neglect. 

I At leng-th it occurred to him, that if he had standinof im- 
I mediately before his eyes, as he entered his room, such a repre- 
I sentative of himself, as it were, which he would be always 
I accustomed to see at all other times of the day dressed in full 
! canonicals, and which, when thus presenting itself to him 
naked, would seem to ask for its usual clothing, he could not 
fail to be reminded of what he had first to do, before returning 
to his studies. And the scheme had answered well, except as 
regarded the bands ; and that small article of church costume 
mattered less. The only evil arising from forgetfulness in this 
particular, was, that it sometimes happened that the Doctor 
came to his dinner table with two or even three pairs of bands 
around his neck, one falling over his coat collar behind, another 
under one of his ears, and a third in its proper position. For 
they would wriggle round his neck ; and as it never occurred 
to him to imagine that any such phenomenon could have taken 
place, when on going to church he found no bands in front, he 
would put on a pair without any inquiry respecting the dis- 
appearance of their predecessors. 

The Doctor always wore gold spectacles ; and as his habits 
made it absolutely necessary for him to possess three or four 
pairs of these, a similarly monstrous hyper-development would 
occur in respect to them, as in the matter of the bands. For, 
when one pair had by accident, or by the action of his hand 
when raised to his brow in thought, been pushed up out of their 
proper place on to his forehead, he never thought of looking, 
or rather feeling* for them there ; but forthwith put on a second 
pair. Lady Sempronia declared, that she had seen her husband 
with one pair on the top of his bald head, another across his 
forehead, and a third in their proper position; and protested 
that the melancholy and monstrous sight had been a particu- 
larly severe trial to her. 

Tbe study was, like that of other gentlemen of similar tastes, 
crammed full of all sorts of queer odds and ends, which were 
regarded with much aversion by the Lady Sempronia. Bub 
6 


82 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


there was one peculiar feature in the contents of the room 
which stirred up her bile, and grieved her heart to a much 
greater degree. This was the long rows of the paper-bound 
volumes of the different Memoirs, which her lord and master 
had contributed to the Silverton Archaoological Club. It must 
be admitted, unhappily, that the rows were very long. By the 
help of the cross-shelves, which have been mentioned as stand- 
ing out across the room, the study afforded accommodation for 
a very considerable number of books. But alas ! the inner 
side of these shelves, or that looking towards the garden 
window, was almost entirely occupied by those costly and 
learned publications. It is true that the mass of them di- 
minished gradually ; but the process was a very slow one. 
And the long rows of identically similar volumes were a sore 
offence to poor Lady Sempronia’s eyes. The Doctor did his 
best to get rid of them ; for no visitor, who could by any possi- 
bility be supposed to take any interest in such matters, left the 
house without a presentation copy of one or more of them. 
But at length it came to pass that the satisfactory disappear- 
ance of the volumes led to an alarmingly unsatisfactory result. 
The stock in hand of the Canon’s Memoir on Panelled Ceilings 
in Coffer- work as Exemplified in Buildings of the Norman and 
Ante-Norman Period, began to run so low, that visions of a 
second edition began to float before the author’s mind, to the 
unspeakable horror of Lady Sempronia. It had been the 
most expensive of all the Doctor’s publications, for coloured 
lithograph illustrations had been found absolutely necessary. 
And the first hint that the learned world would probably 
expect a second edition of that highly appreciated work, had 
been one of Lady Sempronia’s severest trials. The rest of the 
hated volumes, of which in her unforeseeing ignorance she 
had watched the gradual disappearance with satisfaction, sud- 
denly became valuable in her eyes ; and she adopted every 
means of preserving and husbanding the precious remainder of 
them. She had never before condescended to know even the 
titles of any of the Canon’s publications. But now, whenever 
there was any probability that the Doctor would offer any of 
his works to a visitor. Lady Sempronia would interpose with, 
“Not the Coffer- work Ceilings, Dr. Lindisfarn. You have only 
one copy left ! ” And in fact but one copy remained on the 
study shelves. For on the first appearance of the danger, the 
lady had gradually carried off to her secret bower, two or three 
copiea at a time, all the remainder of the edition, to be pro- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


83 


duced, if need were, one at a time, and always under protest, 
so as to stave off the evil day when the Doctor should be able 
to declare that the work was absolutely out of print. 

The Canon, though shorter and smaller than his brother, 
had bee^n a well-looking man in his day. He had a hig’h 
delicately-formed nose, a particularly well-cut and finely-shaped 
mouth, and a classical outline of features generally. Though 
very bald, and limping a little in his gait, in consequence of a 
I fall from a ladder in the cathedral, when he had been engaged 
' in directing and superintending some restorations of his beloved 
I church, he was still a very distinguished-looking man. He 
always wore a large quantity of snow-white but perfectly limp 
and unstarched muslin, wound round and round his throat, and 
a large prominent shirt-frill protruding between the sides of his 
black waistcoat. A black body-coat, very wide in the skirt, 
black breeches, black silk stockings, somewhat negligently 
drawn over very handsome legs, gold knee and shoe buckles, 
which Lady Sempronia in vain strove to induce him to discard 
in favour of the more modern fashion of shoe-ties, completed 
his costume. 

Margaret was a little startled on entering the study to see 
a figure in full canonicals and trencher cap motionless in front 
of her ; and gave a perceptible little jump. 

“No, dear,” said- Kate, “that is not Uncle Theophilus. That 
is only Canon Lindisfarn. May we come in, Uncle ? ” she 
continued ; “ I know you are in your old corner behind the 
books there. Aunt and I have brought Margaret to see you.” 

“Come in, Kate, come in!” said a voice from behind the 
screen of books. “You are always welcome, my dear. But 
who is the Margaret you speak of ? ” 

“ Why, your niece, to be sure,” cried Kate, leading the way 
• round the screen, while Lady Sempronia whispered to Mar- 
garet, as they followed j “ I told you it would be a trial, my 
clear.” 

“ Don’t you remember that you have a niece just returned 
from Paris ? ” continued Kate. 

“To be sure I do ! to be sure I do now you mention it. 

Welcome to England, and welcome to Silverton, and welcome 
to Silverton Close, my dear 1 What a happiness it must be to 
you to find yourself at home once again.” 

“ It is a great pleasure. Sir, to become personally acquainted 
with relatives, whom I have already learnt to venerate,” 8ai4 
Margaret* 

6—2 


84 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“I can’t think,” said the Canon, after looking at Margaret 
in an earnest, and yet wool-gathering sort of manner, — “ I 
can’t think for the life of me, who it is she reminds me of. 
There is some face in my memory that hers seems to recal 
to me.” 

“ They say we Lindisfarns are all more or less alike,” inter- 
posed Kate, fearing whither her uncle’s remembrances might 
be leading him; “and all the people up at the Chase declare 
that Margaret and I are as much alike as two peas.” 

“ Then I am sure they do you great injustice, sister,” said 
Margaret eagerly. “ How can they compare your fresh- 
coloured face to my poor white cheeks ? I do not know how I 
came by them. It is just as if they had coquettishly fashioned 
themselves to please the people they grew among. For the 
Parisians admire white faces and not red ones. But 1 am sure 
I envy Kate’s roses.” 

“ There are white roses and red roses,” said the Canon, “ and 
I’m sure I don’t know that anybody ever yet decided that one 
was more beautiful than the other.” 

“ Talking of roses, by the bye,” said Kate, who did not like 
the turn the conversation was taking, “ what about the cuttings 
you were to prepare for me. Aunt ? Suppose you and I go and 
look after them in the garden, and leave my uncle and Mar- 
garet to complete their acquaintance.” 

Kate was desperately afraid that the Canon’s half-recalled 
memories, which she had little doubt had been roused by a like- 
ness between her sister and Julian, would stumble on, till they 
blundered on something which might throw Lady Sempronia 
into a fit of hysterics, and send her to bed for a week ; and was 
anxious, therefore, to get her out of the danger. And her 
aunt, who never felt particularly comfortable or happy in the 
study, yielded at once to Kate’s lead, merely saying to the • 
Doctor, as she left the room : — 

“Hot a copy of the Coffer- work Ceilings, Dr. Lindisfarn, 
remember you have but one copy left ! ” 

“Lady Sempronia is reminding me,” said the Canon, in 
reply to a look of inquiry from Margaret, when they were left 
alone together, “ that I must not offer you a copy of one of my 
little works, which has been so successful with the public that 
it is nearly exhausted. But the caution can hardly be needed ; 
for it can scarcely be expected that a young lady should interest 
herself in matters of antiquarian research.” 

“ Oh ! there you are wrong, Uncle,” cried Margaret, who 


LINDISPAEN CHASE. 


85 


always was a far glibber talker in a tete-a-tete, be it with whom 
it might, than under any other circumstances. “ And specially 
you do me wrong; for I take particular interest in all such 
matters. Taime la rococo a lafolie ! ” she added, clasping her 
admirably gloved hands together, bending her graceful figure a 
little forwards, and throwing an expression of intense enthu- 
siasm into her beautiful eyes. 

The Doctor, though a competent reader of French, was by 
no means a sufficiently instructed student of French things 
and phrases, to be aware of the amount of distance lying 
between a Parisian lady’s love for “rococo,” and a taste for 
antiquarian research. But he knew very well, that he had 
never seen anything more lovely than his niece looked, as 
she made her profession of admiration for his favourite 
studies. 

“ I really think,” he said in the zeal of his delight at the 
prospect of such a disciple, “ that the last copy of my disserta- 
tion on Coffer- work Ceilings could find no more worthy destina- 
tion than the shelf which holds your own special books, my 
dear. The book is now a rare one ; and will, I doubt not, be 
there in good company.” 

“ Not for the world. Uncle, not for the world ! I shall come 
here and ask you some day to lend me your own copy for a 
quiet hour in the garden. But I would not for any considera- 
tion carry off a copy which you will surely need to give to some 
great man of learning. Besides, what would Lady Sempronia 
say ? But there was a subject about which I was very anxious 
to ask you ; for I can get no information up at the Chase. Is 
it not true that the mansion called the Friary at Weston was 
once a monastery ? I should so like to know all the history of 
it ! ” 

“And I should so like to tell you,” cried the Canon, in the 
greatest glee. “ You are quite right, my dear girl. It is one 
of the most interesting places in the county ! Indeed, I have 
thought for some time past of making it the subject of a 
monograph.” 

Margaret had not the remotest conception of the meaning of 
a “ monograph ; ” nor was she aware how safely she might 
have simply avowed her unacquaintance with the word, without 
pleading guilty to any very disgraceful ignorance ; but she 
thought she might say : — 

“ Oh, that would be delightful. Uncle ! But what I should 
like best of all, if it were possible, would be to visit the spot 


8(3 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


with you. You and I together, you know, so that you might 
explain everything to one.’* 

And why not ? Nothing more easy ! I have not yet 
made acquaintance, by the bye, with the new owners of the 
place.” 

“ Oh, that you will do to-morrow, Uncle. Mr. and Miss 
Merriton are to dine with us. You will meet them, you know. 
And then I shall very soon afterwards come to claim your 
promise of a day at the Friary.” 

“And I shall be delighted to keep it. Perhaps if I decide 
on writing on the subject, you might assist me with your 
pencil. Do you draw my dear ? ” 

“ Yes, I have learnt. I can draw a little. I should be so 
glad to be permitted to be of use. To study, and be directed 
by you, Uncle, would be so delightful.” 

“ And what could give me greater pleasure than to direct 
your studies ? We will attack the Friary together. It really 
ought to be illustrated, the more so that I am not unaware that 
there are sciolists in this very city of Silverton, who hold so mo 
most absurd notions respecting certain portions of the ancient 
buildings. Yes, yes, my dear, with my pen, and your pencil, 
we will attack the Friary together. To think of your having 
already cast your eye on the most interesting bit of antiquity 
in the county, you puss ! ” 

And then Lady Sempronia and Kate came and tapped at the 
window from the garden ; and the former told Margaret to 
come and have some luncheon in the parlour. And the Doctor 
dismissed his newly found niece with the profound conviction 
that she was not only the flower of the family, but the most 
charming, the most highly gifted, and by far the most intelli- 
gent girl it had ever been his lot to meet with . 

“Well! how did you and Uncle get on together?” asked 
Kate. “ Did you make friends ? ” 

“ I hope so,” said Margaret ; “ as far as a learned man 
could with a very ignorant young girl. He was very kind to 
me.” 

“ Did he offer to give you any of his books ? ” asked Lady 
Sempronia, well aware of the channel by which the Doctor’s 
kindness was wont to manifest itself. 

“ Yes, Aunt. He was generous enough to offer me the last 
copy of his memoir on Ceiling- work Coffers. But of course, 
after what you had said, I would not let him do anything of 
the kind. What a pity it is that such an excellent man as my 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 87 

dear uncle should fail to recognize the good sense of abstaining 
from wasting his money on such things ! ” 

And then the carriage came to the door with Miss Immy, 
precisely at three o’clock ; and that very punctual lady sent in 
a message to Lady Sempronia, regretting that the immense 
amount of business she had had to transact in Silverton had 
made it impossible for her to leave herself time enough to 
alight — setting forth the absolute necessity of being at the 
Chase and dressed for dinner in time, not to keep the Squire 
waiting beyond the half-hour of grace allowed them, and beg- 
ging the young ladies to come out without delay. 

So then there was a kissing bout, and Lady Sempronia 
turned to kiss Margaret a second time, as she was leaving the 
room, while Kate was already hurrying across the hall to the 
carriage, and as she pressed her hand, trusted that they should 
see much of each other — 

“ Perhaps the house in the Close, and such little distractions 
as Silverton could offer — dull enough though they generally 
were, God knew — might sometimes be a change from the pro- 
found seclusion and monotony of the Chase.” 

And, “ Ah, ma tante ! Gomme vous etes honne ]Jour moi, vous ! ” 
And so upon the whole (putting out of the question, of course, 
the tender affection of her father and sister ;) Margaret’s dSLut 
at the house in the Close had been a more successful one than 
that at the Chase. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE PARTY AT THE CHASE. 

Miss Immy considered “ a trial ” to be a matter inseparably 
connected with the Assizes, and in some less perfectly under- 
stood manner dependent on Quarter Sessions. She never used 
or understood the word in any other sense (unless as meaning 
simply an attempt) j and in her own private opinion, uncom- 


88 


LINDTSFAEJT CHASE. 


mnnicated to any human being, she attributed Lady Sem- 
pronia’s constant use of the term, to the shocking and fearful 
impression which had been made upon her especially weak 
mind (as Miss Immy considered it) by the idea of the thing, at 
the terrible time when it was a question whether her own son 
might not have to undergo the ordeal of it. Miss Immy had 
no idea that she herself had any trials ; or she certainly might 
have considered it to be one, when on the next morning, the 
morning of the party, it was made evident at breakfast that 
the Squire had entirely forgotten all about it, 

“Would you be so kind, Mr. Mat, as to mention to Mr. 
Lindisfarn once every half hour during the day, that he has to 
entertain friends at dinner to-day, and that he will get no 
dinner before six o’clock ? ” 

“ I’ll try and remember it. Miss Immy, this time,” said the 
Squire, laughing ; “ and if I don’t, it will be my punishment 
to expect my dinner at five and have to wait an hour for it, — a 
penalty that might suffice for a worse crime ! ” 

And then the Squire took his gun, and calling to the dogs 
to join him, was seen no more till he met his guests in the 
drawing-room. 

Miss Immy had very many things on her mind, and was in 
a state of much bustle and business-like energy all day. She 
was wont very scornfully to repudiate the new-fangled heresy 
which teaches that the genteel mistress of a family should dis- 
avow any labours of the kind, and be supposed to delegate all 
such cares to subordinate ministers — existing in the Olympus 
of the drawing-room in a very Epicurean and non- Providential 
condition of godship. She had been irritated by such affecta- 
tions on the part of others — of Lady Sempronia especially — 
into the habit of making a special boast before her guests of 
the part she had personally taken in caring for their entertain- 
ment ; and it was observable that on such occasions, she always 
spoke in her broadest Sillshire Doric. 

Kate, on whom none of these cares fell, had her day at her 
disposition ; and to Margaret’s great surprise, proposed to Mr. 
Mat a ride to Sillmouth. There was a fresh breeze blowing, 
and she should like, she said, a gallop on the sands to see the 
big waves rolling in. Mr. Mat was always ready for a ride 
with Kate ; so Birdie was saddled, and away they went. 

“ Surel}^ it is a bad day to choose fi^r such a ride,” said 
Margaret. 

“ Just the day made for it ! ” cried Kate. “ I know our 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


89 


Sillshirc coast ; and I know what a tide there will be tumbling 
in with this wind.” 

“ Yes, I dare say ; but you will come back with your face as 
red as beetroot, and people coming here this evening ! Besides, 
I wanted to consult you about a hundred things.” 

“ Oh, my face must take its chance, as it always does. And 
we can talk as much as we like to-morrow. We shall have all 
the morning before going over to Wanstrow.” 

“ To-morrow ! but I wanted to talk about my dress for this 
evening,” pouted Margaret. 

“ Your dress ! but you have got such lots of beautiful things. 
Any one will do.” 

“ Any one ! That’s very easily said. But it depends on so 
many things.” 

It was very natural that Kate, who was going to meet only 
old friends, with the exception of Captain Ellingham and the 
Merritons, and who was going to do nothing but what she 
was perfectly well used to, should feel more at her ease about 
the event of the evening than Margaret, who was going to 
make her first appearance at an English dinner-party ^nong a 
roomfull of strangers. But the “so many things” that Mar- 
garet spoke of, included sundry considerations and speculations 
of a kind that had never entered the English-bred girl’s 
philosophy. 

“ But I shall be home in plenty of time to dress,” she said, in 
answer to her sister’s last remonstrance ; “ and then we can 
settle what dress you shall w^ear.” 

So Kate rode off ; and Margaret was left to meditate on her 
evening “trial” in solitude, broken only by the not altogether 
sympathising companionship of Simmons. 

Had it entered into Kate’s head to imagine that the morning 
would appear tedious to Margaret, she 'would not have left her. 
But it was so much the habit of the family to go each one his 
own way, and she was so used to being left alone to her own 
morning occupations herself, that it never occurred to her 
that it was necessary to stay at home because her sister did. 

Nor did it seem that her counsel was really needed in the 
matter of the dress ; or at all events, was so urgently needed 
as to be waited for ; for when she returned from her ride she 
found the great question decided, and every article of Margaret’s 
evening toilette carefully laid out on her bed. 

Kate did return from her sea-side gallop with her face not 
only red but rough ; for her ride had answered her expectations 


90 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


to the utmost ; and not only the boisterous south-west wind, 
but the salt spray had also lashed her cheeks. And it needs a 
painful effort of impartial truthfulness in a chronicler who 
owns a very strong special liking for Kate Lindisfarn, to admit 
that this was not the only respect in which the advantage was 
with Margaret, when the two girls went down to the drawing- 
room. Margaret’s dress was the production of a Parisian 
artist, and fitted her fine shape as smoothly and somewhat more 
tightly than her skin. Kate’s, alas ! was but the clief-d/ceuvre of 
Miss Piper, the Silverton milliner. It was a pretty light blue 
silk dress, a shade or • two lighter than the wearer’s eyes, 
which, whatever her complexion may have been, were decidedly 
none the worse for her ride. They danced, and laughed, and 
flashed with health, and good humour, and high spirits. Blue 
was Kate’s favourite colour, and it always became her well. 
But Miss Piper’s handiwork did not escape Margaret’s criti- 
cism in more respects than one ; and it must be admitted that 
the young lady was a very competent critic. 

“ What will become of me, if I am to wear dresses made by 
the person who made that ? ” cried she. “ Why, it fits about 
as well as a sack, Kate, here under the arms. It makes your 
waist look thick, or rather gives you no waist at all ! And 
you must admit that it is cut odiously round the shoulders.” 

“ Poor Miss Piper ! ” said Kate laughing. “ She thought 
that she surpassed herself when she turned out this dress ; and 
I thought it a very pretty one myself. But I can see very well 
that it does not fit like yours. And then, you know, I have not 
such a slender waist as yours ; we proved that by the riding- 
habit. And as for the shoulders, I suppose it is cut about as 
low as they are worn hereabouts. We are provincial folks, 
you know. But you may depend upon it, we are not so 
ignorant, any of us, as not to see how exquisitely dressed you 
are. I never saw such a fit. And how it becomes you ! ” 

Margaret was in truth looking exceedingly lovely. She had 
selected a black silk dress ; perhaps from having been led to 
think of the ivory whiteness of her own skin, in connection 
with her prognostications of the effect of the morning’s ride on 
her sister’s. At all events, the choice was a judicious one. Not 
only the complexion of the face, but the perfect creamy white- 
ness of the magnificent throat, and as much as could be seen of 
the shoulders, was shown off to the utmost advantage by the 
dark folds of the material in juxtaposition with it. As before, 
Kate wore her beautiful hair in ringlets ; while Margaret’s 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


91 


somewhat darker locks were, quite unusually for Sillshire, 
bound tightly around her small classically shaped head, not 
only displaying to advantage the beauty of it, but adding in 
appearance to her height. Kate was in fact the taller of the 
two girls. But what with this difference of head-dress, what 
with her somewhat more slender figure, and what with the 
additional advantage given to this by the cut and admirable 
fitting of her dress, anybody who had seen the two otherwise 
than absolutely side by side, would have said that Margaret 
had the advantage. Kate wore white silk stockings and kid 
shoes ; Margaret black silk, of that very fine and gauzy quality, 
which allows a sufficiency of the whiteness of the skin beneath 
to shine through the thin covering, to turn the black almost to 
grey ; and black satin shoes. And here again, alas ! she had 
the advantage over our Sillshire Kate. And men will be so 
stupid in these matters. I would lay a wager, that either 
Captain Ellingham, Fred Falconer, or Mr. Merriton, the latter 
especially — he was the youngest — would have said the next 
morning that Margaret had the prettier foot ; whereas all that 
could have been said in justice, was that she had the prettier 
shoe. In this matter Sillshire could not compete with Paris. 
And it may be possible that the active habits of Sillshire life, 
had added something to the muscular development, and there- 
fore to the thickness of the country-bred foot, which had done 
more walking, running, jumping, riding, swimming, in its life 
than any score of Parisian young ladies* feet. At all events 
the exquisitely beautiful slenderness of the by no means short, 
but well-formed foot, and high arched instep, which showed 
itself beneath the folds of Margaret’s black dress, was shown 
to the greatest possible advantage by the skill of the Parisian 
Melnotte of that day. 

Upon the whole, the contrasted style of their dresses added 
so much to the real differences between the two girls, and the 
contrasted style of their manner added so much more, that no 
stranger would have guessed them to be sisters, much less 
twins. As to this latter matter of bearing, gait, and all the 
innumerable and indescribable little details which make up 
what is called manner, there was more room for difference of 
opinion. Every man admires a Parisian dress or shoe more 
than a Sillshire one. But some men — and not Sillshire men 
only — may prefer the Lindisfarn-bred to the Ohassee-d'-Anti)u 
bred manner. Margaret herself, however, had no doubt at all 
upon this department of the question, any more than upon 


92 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


the other. And her last final glance at the Psyche glass in her 
chamber, sent her down stairs by Kate’s side in high good 
humour. 

When they entered the drawing-room they found Miss Immy 
and Mr. Mat, with Lady Farnleigh and Captain Ellingham. 
The Squire had not yet come into the room. There was a fire 
in the grate ; for though it had been hitherto lovely September 
weather, the day had been boisterous and windy, — the first fore- 
taste of autumn. Lady Farnleigh and Miss Immy were sitting 
near the fire, and discussing a method, said to be infallible, for 
keeping eggs fresh longer than any other way ; and Miss Immy 
was declaring her conviction that a fresh-laid egg was a fresh- 
laid egg, and a stale egg a stale egg, despite all the cleverness 
and contrivances in the world. Mr. Mat and Captain Elling- 
ham were talking in the embrasure of a window near the door. 
When the girls came in, however, and went to join the ladies 
on the rug before the fire, the two gentlemen came forward, 
and Captain Ellingham was presented by Lady Farnleigh to 
both the young ladies. There was not the slightest difference in 
her manner in either case ; but she introduced the stranger first 
to Kate. And a slight shade passed over Margaret’s heart, 
not over her face — fas si hete ! — as the reflection occurred to 
her, that Kate had no right to be treated as if she were the 
elder sister. 

Margaret saw enough of the Captain with half a glance, 
however, to make up her mind at once, that as far as he was 
concerned, any little matter of this kind was of small impor- 
tance to her. Knowing how poor a man Captain Ellingham 
was, it was quite a satisfaction to her — almost, one might say, 
a relief — to find that no amount of dangerous attractiveness 
had been thrown away upon him. And yet all women, and 
even all young girls, would not have been at all disposed to 
subscribe to Margaret’s opinion on this point. Captain Elling- 
ham was one of those men who seem to impersonate the beau- 
ideal of their calling. He looked exactly what he was, every 
inch a sailor. He was of middling height, very broad in the 
shoulders, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh on him. His 
coal-black hair and whiskers, of which he wore rather more 
than was at that time usual among landsmen, were already 
beginning to be slightly streaked with groy. His cheek was 
dark by nature, and bronzed by exposure to weather. The 
large good-humoured mouth, showing every time he smiled a 
set of magnificently regular teeth, was supported by a massive 


LINDISFA-RN CHASE. 


93 


square chin, the fleshlessness of which, and of the jaw behind 
it, caused the lower edge of the latter to show an angle as clean 
and well-defined as the right angle of a square piece of iron ; 
and it looked as hard and firm as that. But the eyes were the 
principal feature of his face. They were large brown eyes, 
which, when they looked anybody in the face without any reason 
for special expression, gave the impression that nothing could 
ever make them wink. When they were under the influence of 
any particular attitude of mind, it was strange how varied, and 
indeed how contradictory, the expression of them could be. 
Men said, his own men, the crew of his ship especially — that 
Captain Elligham had the eye of a hawk. Others said, not 
men so much — that Captain Ellingham had an eye like a stag. 
For the rest, he had that sort of quick, decided manner, and 
that extra and superfluous amount of movement in his bearing, 
gait, and action, which is apt to characterise temperaments of 
great energy and nervous excitability. Upon the whole, one 
might say that Captain Ellingham was not, perhaps, a man to 
fall over head and ears in love with at first sight ; but one 
with whom it would be very specially difficult to struggle out 
of love again, if once an adventurous heart should have 
advanced far enough to begin to feel the power of attraction. 

Captain Ellingham, on his side, was one of those men par- 
ticularly apt to fall in love, as it is called, at first sight ; but 
not irretrievably so. There was too much depth of character, 
too much caution, too much shrewd common sense, and too 
strong an admiration for, and cleaving to, and need of nobleness 
and goodness for that. So that, in point of fact, his tendency 
to love at first sight amounted to little more than great sus- 
ceptibility to every form of female charm, joined to that prone- 
ness to poetise each manifestation of it into a conformity 
with his own ideal, which generally characterises such tempera- 
ments. 

Lady Farnleigh’s spirit, if any amount of “ medium ” power 
could cause it to look over the writer’s shoulder as the words 
are formed by his pen-^(would that it could do so ! ah, would 
that it could ! — ) Lady Farnleigh’s spirit, I say, would be very 
angry at the breach of confidence. But the fact was, that as 
they returned together in her ladyship’s carriage to Wanstrow 
that night. Captain Ellingham admitted, that of the two charm- 
ing girls he had seen, he had been most struck by that ex- 
quisitely lovely sylph in black ; — certainly the most beautiful 
creature he had ever seen ! WJiereupon that somewhat free* 


94 


LINDISFARN CHASE, 


spoken lady had told him that he was a great goose, and knew 
about as much of women as she did of haulyards and marling- 
spikes. 

Very short time, however, was allowed him for any quiet 
comparison of the two Lindisfarn lasses, before the rest of the 
guests began to arrive. The first comers were old Mr. Falconer 
and his son. The latter is already in some degree known to 
the reader. The first thing that struck one in the former was 
his adherence to the then all but obsolete fashion of wearing a 
queue, or pigtail, and powder. He was a tall, florid, well-pre- 
served old gentleman, somewhere between sixty and seventy, 
who having lived among the clergy of a cathedral city all his 
life, had acquired naturally in a great degree, and affected in 
a still greater, a clerical tone of manners and sentiments. 
Nothing pleased old Mr. Falconer more than to be mistaken for 
a clergyman. 

Mr. Freddy, whose drawing-room get-up was in all respects 
on a par with that of his morning hours, and on a level with 
his reputation, after he had greeted with salutations accurately 
and gracefully adapted to the special fitness of each particular 
case, all his old acquaintances, was of course presented first to 
Margaret, and afterwards to Captain Ellingham ; — the first by 
Kate, with a very gracious “ My sister, Mr. Falconer. Your 
Parisian reminiscences (Mr. Freddy had spent a winter in 
Paris) will make you seem almost more like an old acquaint- 
ance than any other of her Sillshire friends.” The other intro- 
duction was performed less graciously by Lady Farnleigh, as 
thus : — ‘‘ Mr. Falconer, the Honourable Mr. Ellingham, in com- 
mand of Her Majesty’s Revenue Cutter, the Petrel, on the Sill- 
mouth station.” 

Lady Farnleigh always called Lieutenant Ellingham Captain, 
like all the rest of the world. I do not know why she chose 
not to do so* on this occasion ; and I suppose that Freddy 
Falconer could not have told why, either. But he observed it ; 
and hated Lady Farnleigh for it more than he did before. It 
was because he hated her, and not, to do him justice, from any 
vulgar reverence for her superior rank, that his bow to her had 
been markedly lower than to any other person in the room. 

Next arrived Dr. Theophilus Lindisfarn, bringing with him, 
not indeed the precious memoir on Coffer- work Ceilings, but 
another on “ The Course and Traces of the Ancient City Walls 
of Silverton,” as an offering to Margaret ; the ceremonious pre- 
seutatiou of which before the assembled company, and tbo 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


95 


consequent pouncing on her by old Mr. Falconer, not a little 
disgusted that sylph-like creature, and wreaked on her some 
measure of punishment for the false pretences which had 
brought it upon her. She had reason to suspect too, that 
there was more of the same sort of annoyance in store for 
her. For the Canon had entered the room bearing in his 
hands a carefully packed and sealed brown-paper parcel, 
looking very much like a brick in size and shape, which ho 
had carefully deposited on a side-table, saying with sundry 
winks and nods and mysterious smiles, that there was some- 
thing for their amusement in the evening, which he believed 
some, at least of those present (with a very flatteringly 
meaning look at Margaret) would appreciate. 

Then came in the Squire, with a rush, and a circular fire of 
apologies. 

■ ‘‘ A thousand pardons. Lady Farnleigh ! You have tolerated 
my v/ays so long that I hope you will bear with me a little 
longer and give up all hope of seeing them mended. How do, 
Falconer ? I am not absolutely unpunctual though. It is not 
six o’clock yet ! Wants two minutes ! ” 

“And a half, Mr. Lindisfarn ! ” said the old banker, in a 
comforting, encouraging sort of tone, as he consulted his 
chronometer. 

“ Thank you. Falconer. And a half ! Who calls that not 
being in time ? How do, brother ? How is Lady Sempronia ? 
Not equal to the trial of coming up to the Chase, eh ? ” 

And then the Squire was introduced to Captain Ellingham — 
duly called so this time — by Lady Farnleigh : and welcomed 
him to the Chase, and to Sillshire, with a charming mixture of 
high-bred courtesy and friendly cordiality. 

“ And now. Mat, ring the bell, and tell them that they may 
let us have dinner, there’s a good fellow. You must be all half- 
starved.** 

“ But we are not all here, Mr. Lindisfarn,” said Miss Immy. 
“We are expecting Mr. Merriton and his sister from the Friary, 
Lady Farnleigh. Mr. Lindisfarn asked them himself ; and now 
he has forgotten all about it ! ” 

“ Bless me, so I had ! Don’t tell of me, anybody ! But 
they ought to have been here by this time. I hope they don’t 
mean to bring London ways into Sillshire, and understand one 
to mean seven when one says six.” 

“ Our clocks are too fast, Mr. Lindisfara, I told you so the 
other day,’* pleaded Miss Immy, 


96 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Nofc if they make it now only two minutes past six/’ said 
Mr. Falconer, again consulting his infallible watch. 

“ Not a bit of it,” said the Squire ; ‘‘ and perhaps the best 
way of showing them that six means six in Sillshire would be 
to go to dinner.” 

But the Squire was persuaded to allow a little law on the 
score of the defaulters being strangers, and this the first time 
of offending. And happily a carriage was heard crunching 
the gravel outside the drawing-room windows before another 
ten minutes had passed, — which, however long they may have 
seemed to the seniors of the party, passed quickly enough with 
some of the others. 

And then Mr. Merriton and Miss Merriton were announced. 
They were entire strangers to everybody in the room except the 
Falconers, and except in so far as a casual meeting had intro- 
duced Mr. Merriton to Mr. Lindisfarn. And there was conse- 
quently a little excitement of expectation among the party 
assembled, to see what the new comers into the county were 
like. And in the next instant it was recognized by all present, 
that they were at all events remarkable-looking jDcople. 

Arthur Merriton, though a smaller and slighter man than 
either Captain Ellingham or Fred Falconer, would have been 
thought by many a more remarkably handsome man than 
either. He would probably have been more generally thought 
so in England than among his mother’s countrymen, where the 
peculiar type of his beauty is much more common. Fred 
Falconer’s brown locks and carnation-coloured cheeks would 
have attracted more admiring eyes among the beauties of the 
Gonca d^oro and the carefully-blinded windows of Palermo, than 
the raven’s-wing curls, the brilliant dark eyes, and the thin 
transparent-looking sallow cheeks, and finely formed, but yellow- 
white brow of the son of a Sicilian mother. In person and 
figure he was delicately and slenderly made, with small and 
well-shaped hands and feet. His manner was unexceptionably 
gentlemanlike; but there was a nervousness about it that 
seemed half excitability and half shyness, as he went through 
the ordeal of being presented to the various individuals of his 
new neighbourhood. 

And this peculiarity of manner was yet more marked in the 
case of his sister. She was very small, moreover, and really 
fairy-like in figure, which increased the effect of her shrinking 
timidity and nervousness of manner. Her little figure, in its 
almost miniature proportions, was exquisitely perfi' \ . • 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


97 


face had peculiarities which prevented it from being beautiful. 
The large fair forehead, which seemed first to attract anybody 
who saw Miss Merriton for the first time, was too large, and 
too square, and too prominent for the small face. The eyes had 
also the rare defect of being too large. But perhaps their size 
alone would not have seemed a fault, if they had not also been 
too prominent, and what the French call d/ fieur de tete. The 
other features of the face were good and delicate. Exceeding 
delicacy indeed, was the prominent and paramount charac- 
teristic of the entire face and figure. The hair was most re- 
markably abundant, and beautiful in quality, and as black as 
night. The whole face, except the lips, was entirely colourless. 

The ladies and the young men had had time to note all this ; 
and the old men had had time to think to themselves, “ What 
a very strange-looking little body ! when the dinner-bell at 
length rang. 

Mr. Lindisfarn gave his arm to Lady Farnleigh ; Mr. Fal- 
coner took Miss Immy ; Dr. Theophilus seized on Margaret, to 
her exceeding great disgust, making her feel as though she 
should burst into tears amid the sweet smiles with which she 
looked up into his face, and pretended to coax him, as they 
walked to the dining-room, to tell her what was inside the 
brown-paper parcel ; Captain Ellingham’s character of stranger, 
as well as his rank, secured him Kate’s arm ; Freddy Falconer 
had Miss Merriton under his care ; and so with Mr. Merriton 
and Mr. Mat bringing up the rear, they went to dinner. 


END OF PART HI. 



7 


98 


IINDISWRN CHASE. 




CHAPTER X. 

AT DINNER, AND AFTERWARDS. 

It was somewhat contrary to rule ; but the head of the 
table at the Chase was always occupied by Miss Immy. It 
was so for that good old conservative reason, that it always 
had been so from time immemorial. And the arrangement 
was a good one under the circumstances on one account at all 
events, that it obviated any difficulty as to the question to which 
of the twin Lindisfarn lasses should be assigned that post of 
honour. So Miss Immy sat at the top of the table, with the 
Canon on her right and the old banker on her left hand, 
exactly as she had done on many a previous occasion. And 
next to Dr. Lindisfarn of course sat Margaret. On the right 
hand of the Squire was Lady Farnleigh, and opposite to her 
Miss Merriton with Fred Falconer by her side. One place 
therefore, remained vacant between him and Margaret. On 
the opposite side of the table, to the right of the Squire, that is 
to say, next to old Mr. Falconer, sat Kate, with Captain 
Ellingham on the other side of her. So that on this side of 
the table also there remained one vacant place between Elling- 
ham and Lady Farnleigh ; and all the party were seated except 
the two luckless unmated cavaliers, Merriton and Mr, Mat. It 
was an anxious moment for Margaret, while it remained in 
doubt which of the two unseated ones would find his place on 
her side, and which of them on the other. Had she found her- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


99 


self between the Doctor and Mr. Mat, the swelling indignation 
at her gentle heart must have brimmed over at the eyes. She 
had already suffered from fate almost as much as she could 
bear ; and had endured it with the smiles of a red Indian at the 
stake. 

As it was, she was rewarded for her heroism. Of the two 
places that remained unfilled when Merriton and Mr. Mat 
entered the room together, closing the procession from the 
drawing-room, Mr. Mat saw at a glance the advantages and 
disadvantages attached to each of them ; and like an old soldier 
lost no time in seizing on that which pleased him best. Mr. 
Merriton, even if he had had any preferences on the subject, 
was far too shy and nervous to have acted with promptitude for 
the gratification of them. Mr. Mat had the choice, therefore, 
of a place between Lady Farnleigh and Captain Ellingham, or 
one between Margaret and Fred Falconer ; and did not hesi- 
tate an instant. Mr. Mat had got no further yet as regarded 
Margaret, than the unwilling admission to himself that she did 
not like a Lindisfarn lass, and the feeling that he could not 
quite make her out. But Mr. Freddy Falconer was his abomi- 
nation. On the other hand Lady Farnleigh was a great 
favourite of his, and she always made much of Mr. Mat ; while 
of Captain Ellingham he had liked well enough what little he 
had seen of him during their short conversation in the drawing- 
room before the other guests had arrived. 

So Mr. Mat slipped round the table to the vacant place on 
the side opposite the door of the room, before Mr. Merriton had 
time to see where there was any place for him at all; and Mar- 
garet was made happy by finding the evidently “ eligible ’’ Mr. 
Merriton by her side. 

If only she could have changed places with him ! She would 
then have been what the moralist tells us nobody is , — ah omni 
parte heata — with Merriton on one side and Freddy Falconer on 
the other ! That was what she would have liked if she could 
have had it all her own way. She would have preferred, too, 
if she could not have both these good things, to have had Fred 
Falconer by her side, rather than Mr. Merriton. She had not, 
it is true, any accurate data of the kind which alone ought to 
determine the choice of a well-brought-up and thoroughly pru- 
dent young lady in a case of the kind. Fred Falconer was the 
only son of a rich banker. Mr. Merriton was the only son of 
a merchant who must be presumed to have been rich also, and 
had just bought an estate. It was impossible to say. It was a 
7 —^ 


100 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


case of doubt, in wbicb it was perfectly permissible to suffer 
one’s self to be influenced by mere personal inclination, and 
Margaret felt far more inclined to like Falconer. To her 
thinking he was out of all comparison the handsomer man of 
the two ; and then he had Vusage du monde, as she said in dis- 
cussing the matter afterwards with her sister. 

Nevertheless she was tolerably well contented with the goods 
the gods had provided her in young' Merriton. Things had 
looked much worse ! What would it have been, if she had 
been, as seemed at one moment so likely, shut up between her 
uncle and Mr. Mat ? And then an imjDartial cohsideration of 
the entire situation required that much weight should be 
allowed to the position of the rival forces on the battle-field. 
And with this she was tolerably contented. If she could not 
have the incomparable Frederick, it was far better that he 
should be given up to that absurd and childish-looking Miss 
Merriton than to Kate ; — especially bearing in mind those hints 
that had fallen from Lady Farnleigh on the subject! She 
admitted to herself, that she could not have managed Kate’s 
place better, if the arrangement had been left entirely to her 
own discretion. She was separated by the entire length and 
breadth of the table from Fred Falconer ; and was between 
his father and that disagreeable-looking Captain Ellingham, 
who was of no use, but might possibly serve the purpose of 
making Falconer jealous. Margaret was also well pleased 
to be placed at a good distance from Lady Farnleigh. 

“ You would not have had such a fish as that, Mr. Lindisfarn, 
I can tell you,” said Miss Immy, as the Canon began to cut up 
the turbot, under the watchful eye of his brother antiquary 
opposite, who jealously observed the distribution of the divi- 
dend of fin, “ you would not have had such a fish as that, Mr. 
Lindisfarn, if I had not spoken to Cookson myself about it ; it 
is no easy matter to get a bit of fish, now-a-days, Lady Farn- 
leigh. It all goes to London.” 

“It would not be a bad plan for the Silverton people to 
subscribe and rig" out a fishing-boat of their own,” said Mr. 
Mat. 

“ The Londoners would out-bid you. Sir. Fish, like every- 
thing else ^oill go to tlie best market,” said old Falconer. 

“And if your fisherman were to catch not on his own 
account but on yours, I am afraid the Silverton subscription 
boat would hardly get a fair share of the fish,” said Captain 
Ellingham. 


LINDTSFARN CHASE. 


101 


“I am content to leave the matter in the hands of Miss 
Immy and Cookson,” said the Doctor ; “ for I never eat a better 
fish in my life.” 

“ Lady Farnleigh tells me that you are a great swimmer as 
well as an accomplished rider, Miss Lindisfarn ; ” said Captain 
Ellingham to Kate. “ Are you fond of the sea in any other 
way ? Boating or yachting ? ” 

“ I have had very little opportunity of trying,” answered 
Kate ; — “ laever in anything larger than one of the small Sill- 
mouth pilot boats ; — but I liked that very much, — almost as 
much as a gallop on land.” 

“ I wonder whether I could induce you and your sister to 
take a day’s cruise in my cutter. I am sure we could persuade 
Lady Farnleigh to do chaperoned 

“ I should like it of all things,” said Kate ; ‘‘ it would be a 
great treat.” 

“We will consult Lady Farnleigh then, and ask your sister 
after dinner. The only thing is to choose a good day. It 
would be desperately dull work for you to be becalmed.” 

“ Such a day as to-day would be the thing, would it not ? ” 
said Kate. 

“Well! you may have too much of a good thing, you 
know. There must have been a good deal of sea off the coast 
to-day.” 

“ Indeed there was ! I can answer for that. Or perhaps I 
should say, that there seemed to be in my ignorance.” 

“ Were you down on the coast to-day ? ” 

“ Yes, I and Mr. Mat got a gallop on the Sillmouth sands. 
I went because I was sure there would be great waves with 
this south-west wind, and I am so fond of seeing them tumble 
in on the shore.” 

“ What 1 You knew it was a sou’- west wind then ? I 
thought landsmen never knew what wind was blowing.” 

“ But I am a lands- woman, you know. And I assure you, 
that we up at the Chase here are apt to know more about the 
wind than they do in Silver ton.” 

“ Yes, I suppose you must get the most of it up in the woods 
above the house. What magnificent old woods they are ! ” 

“ You must tell Noll that. He is very fond and a little proud 
of the Lindisfarn woods.” 

“ And may I ask who Noll is ? ” 

“ Noll is the elderly gentleman at the bottom of the table, 
whom all the rest of the world besides me call Oliver Lindis- 


102 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


farn, Esquire. Papa ! Captain Ellingham was strucli by tbe 
beauty of the Lindisfarn woods.” 

“ You must see them by daylight, and ride through them,” 
said the Squire. “ There are some very fine trees among them. 
But you could see very little as you drove up to the Chase this 
evening.” 

“ I walked up the hill, and enjoyed the twilight view most 
thoroughly. And then, you know, we sailors have cats* eyes, 
and can see in the dark.** 

“ If you care about that sort of thing,** said old Mr. Fal- 
coner, “ you should not ride, but walk through the woods on 
Lindisfarn brow, as we Silverton people call the crest of the 
hill above the house yonder. There are some of the finest 
sticks of timber in the county there ; but the Squire won*t cut 
a tree of them.** 

“ No ! there is another old stick must be felled first, before 
the axe goes among the oaks on Lindisfarn brow,** said the 
Squire. 

“ But is it really true that cats can see in the dark ? ** asked 
Miss Immy ; who had been meditating on that assertion since 
Captain Ellingham had made it. 

“ It is generally said so ; but at all events, a sailor is obliged 
to do so, more or less ; *’ said Captain Ellingham. 

“ I wish I could,** returned Miss Immy, meditatively ; “for I 
am always afraid of setting my cap on fire when I carry a 
lighted candle in my hand.** 

“ The boundary line of the Lindisfarn Chase property ran 
very close behind the site of the house, once upon a time,** said 
old Mr. Falconer, “ and all the woods on the hill were part of 
the property belonging to the Friary at Weston. But at the 
dissolution of the monasteries the Lindisfarn of that day 
obtained a grant of all that portion of the land which lies on 
this side of the Lindisfarn brook. It has often seemed odd to 
me, that having sufficient interest to obtain so large a slice of 
the spoil, he did not find means to add the whole of the Friary 
estates to Lindisfarn.** 

“ I don*t think the old boundary line ran quite as you con- 
ceive it to have done, Falconer,** said the Doctor. “ There is 
no doubt about the line as far as the corner of the Weston 
warren ; but supposing us to take our stand at that point,** 
etc., etc., etc. 

And the two old gentlemen, who rarely met without a battle 
royal on some point or other of the manifold knotty questions 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


103 


with which the paths of hoar antiquity” are strewn quite 
as thickly as they are with flowers, entered forthwith into a 
hot dispute, carrying on the fight across Miss Immy, who kept 
turning from one speaker to the other, with her little palsied 
nodding of the head, as if she took the most lively interest in 
the matter in hand, and was very much convinced by the argu- 
ments of each speaker in succession. 

]\Iargaret, meanwhile, between whom and Mr. Merriton a 
very few absolutely matter-of-course words only had passed, 
seized the opportunity afforded by Mr. Falconer’s expression of 
surprise that some ancestors of hers had not found means to 
monopolize the whole of the ancient Friary property, to say to 
her neighbour, speaking in a very low and gentle voice, which 
contrasted with the rather loud tone in which all the rest of the 
conversation had been carried on : — 

“ I am sure it is better for all parties that my ancestors did 
not add the Friary to Lindisfarn. Do you not think so, Mr. 
Merriton ? I am sure it is of more advantage to the inhabi- 
tants of the Chase to have some other neighbours besides the 
good people of Silverton, than to have a few more acres.” 

“ At all events,” replied Mr. Merriton, blushing painfully up 
to the roots of his black hair as he spoke, “ it would have 
been in every point of view a misfortune for me, Miss Lindis- 
farn.” 

“ I have never been at the Friary yet ; but I am told that it 
is the most beautiful thing in the county ; ” rejoined Margaret, 
in the same low tone of voice. 

“ You have never been to the Friary ? And living within 
five miles of it ! 

“ But I am a more recent inhabitant of Sillshire than you 
are, Mr. Merriton. This is only the fourth day from my arrival 
at Lindisfarn.” 

“I thought you had lived here all your life,” said Mr. 
Merriton simply, 

“No, indeed ! ” replied the young lady, with an intonation in 
which might have been detected some manifestations of a con- 
sciousness that her neighbour’s supposition was not a compli- 
mentary one ; “ my whole life has been passed in Paris ; and I 
assure you,” she added, in a yet lower and more confidential 
tone, “ that I find myself quite as much in a strange land here 
as you can do. Does not Miss Merriton find all the things and 

all the people here very she hesitated a little before 

adding — “ very different from what she has been used to ? ” 


104 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


As Margaret had not the remotest idea what manner of 
people, or things, or places Miss Merriton had been used to, the 
remark was rather liasarde^ as Margaret would have said her- 
self. And the consciousness that it was so prompted her to 
add : “ I suppose you have lived in London ? ” 

“ For rather more than a year past we have done so ; and at 
different times in my life I have been in town, and in other 
parts of England before. But the greatest portion of my life 
has been passed in a different clime.” 

There was in the last words Mr, Merriton had spoken, 
and in the manner which accompanied them, enough to have 
afforded a shrewder and more experienced observer than Mar- 
garet, a key to one phase at least of his character ; but she 
was not equal to the perception or to the application of it. 
And he was probably a little disappointed when she replied 
simply : — 

“ Have you too lived in Paris, then ? ” 

“ ISTo, Miss Lindisfarn, not in Paris. My home was under a 
more genial sky.” 

Margaret gave him a quick, sharp, sidelong glance out of the 
corner of her eye, and from under the shelter of its long silken 
lash ; but as this showed her nothing in Mr. Merri ton’s re- 
markably handsome face but an expression which seemed to 
her one of intense sadness, and as she did not see her way 
at all clearly in the direction which their conversation was 
taking, she changed it by recurring to the safer topic of the 
Friary. 

“ Is your new home as beautiful a place as I have been told 
it is, Mr. Merriton? I think I should be more inclined to 

accept your opinion on the subject than that of people who 

have known little else than Sillshire.” 

“ Yes, it is very pretty ; a very pretty house and grounds. 
But I hope. Miss Lindisfarn, that there is no need for you to 
take anybody’s opinion save your own, on the subject. I trust 
I may soon have the pleasure of showing it to you.” 

“ You are very good. I should so like it ! Indeed, my 
uncle, Dr. Lindisfarn, had promised to ask your permission to 
take me there with him. I believe,” she added, turning her 
head towards him, so as to look away from her uncle on the 
other side of her, and speaking in a very low voice, “ that it is 
considered that the Friary is interesting in some antiquarian 
point of view.” 

There was no fear that her uncle might overhear any of her 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


105 


conversation with Mr. Merriton ; for he was far too busily and 
too loudly engaged in his dispute with Mr. Falconer, carried on 
across the table. 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Merriton ; “ I dare say it may bo so ; for as 
the place was once a monastery, there must be a history 
attached to it. Do you interest yourself in such pursuits. Miss 
Lindisfarn ? ” 

This was rather a difficult question for Margaret to answer. 
There was in the matter itself something, and in the tone of 
Mr. Merriton’s last speech more, to disincline her to reply in the 
affirmative, and she was afraid with her uncle so close to her, to 
answer as she would have done under other circumstances. 
And then there was the prospect of the part she would have to 
play, when the odious brown-paper parcel should be opened 
after dinner in the drawing-room. So after casting a rapid 
glance at her uncle, and having thus ascertained that he was 
thoroughly absorbed in his conversation about the ancient 
boundary line between the Lindisfarn property and that of the 
old monks, she ventured to say : — 

“Oh, I am a great deal too ignorant to understand any- 
thing, or indeed ” (almost in a whisper) “ to care much about 
any such matters. But my uncle is very fond of them ; and I 
try to interest myself as much as possible in them to please 
him, you understand. When anyone is kind to me, I am sure 
to take an interest in what interests them. That is a woman’s 
nature, you know, Mr. Merriton.” 

“We must talk to your uncle after dinner, and arrange for a 
visit to the Friary. It ought to be very soon, before this 
beautiful weather is over.” 

“And you must make me acquainted, too, with your sister, 
Mr. Merriton, when we get into the drawing-room. I am 
dying to make friends with her. I am sure we shall suit each 
other.” 

Margaret was in truth anxious to have the means of inter- 
rupting or impeding in some way the apparently very promising 
flirtation which had been progressing during dinner between 
that young lady and Mr. Frederick Falconer, and which had 
by no means escaped her observation. 

“ Yes, I hope you will like my sister,” replied Mr. Merriton ; 
“ but you must have the kindness and the patience to mak e 
yourself acquainted with her first. Emily is very timid, very 
shy, very retiring.” 

Margaret thought to herself that Mr. Falconer had, without 


106 


IINDISFAEN CHASE. 


any very great amount of perseverance, contrived to overcome 
those barriers to acquaintanceship with Miss Merriton ; but 
she only said : 

“ Oh, I am sure we shall understand each other.” 

Lady Farnleigh, the Squire, and Mr. Mat had been all this 
time discussing the alarming increase in the depredations of 
poachers, since the conclusion of the war, and the necessity of 
taking some steps, which Lady Farnleigh was reluctant to 
adopt, for the protection of the game on the Wanstrow Manor 
estate. So that, what with the eager antiquarian discussion 
at the head of the table, the sotto voce conversations between 
Margaret and Mr. Merriton, and between Fred Falconer and 
Miss Merriton, and the triparite poaching debate at the bottom 
of the board, there was every opportunity for Kate and Captain 
Ellingham to have enjoyed as undisturbed a tete-a-tete as any 
similarly circumstanced individuals could have desired. Yet it 
somehow or other came to pass that they did not make the most 
— or even much of it. After the talk between them about 
the proposed excursion in the cutter, the conversation had 
languished. Captain Ellingham had eagerly asked whether 
Margaret liked the sea as well as her sister, and expressed his 
hope, rather more earnestly than seemed necessary, that she 
would be of the proposed party ; and then little more than a 
few “ mere words of course ” now and then had passed between 
them. Captain Ellingham’s attention, in fact, was engrossed by 
the couple who sat opposite to him, Margaret and Mr. Merriton, 
and by the apparently very confidential nature of the con- 
versation that was going on between them. He seemed unable 
to take his eyes off Margaret, and was, in fact, acquiring that 
certainty that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever 
seen, which he expressed afterwards to Lady Farnleigh on their 
way home. 

This might suffice to account for the fact that the con- 
versation between him and Kate had languished during the 
dinner-time. But to tell the whole truth, Kate was on her 
side, not to the same extent, nor so undisguisedly, but very simi- 
larly guilty. Whereas, anybody might have seen that Captain 
Ellingham was observing Margaret with undisguised admira- 
tion, and uneasiness at the closeness of her tete-a-tete with the 
man by her side, ::obody save a very fine and intelligent 
observer could have noted the occasional little lightning- quick 
and furtive glances which Kate sent into the corner of the 
table opposite to her, on an errand of discovery respecting the 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 107 

nature of the intercourse going on between Frederick Falconer 
and Miss Merriton. 

Was that then a matter of such vital interest to Kafce 
Lindisfarn ? The question is one which cuts rudely into the 
very centre of the triply guarded citadel and mystery of a 
young girl’s heart. It is hardly a fair question. Vital 
importance ! No, certainly ; it was not a matter of vital 
importance ! Well, but that is a mere quibble — a riding off 
on the exact sense of a word. Was it a matter of such 
great interest to her to know what Mr. Falconer was saying 
to Miss Merriton ? No, she certainly did not at all wish to 
overhear any part of his conversation. Was Kate in love with 
Fred Falconer ? There, that is plain ! 

No ! the rude question may be answered as plainly. No ; 
she was not in love with Fred Falconer. If he had proposed 
to Miss Merriton to-morrow, and married her next day, Kate’s 
next gallop on Birdie would not have been perhaps a whit less 
joyous, or her rest at night a whit less unbroken. Still, Kate 
could hardly, at the time in question, be said with truth to 
walk the world fancy-free. But that pretty and dainty word 
expresses fully and entirely the whole state of the case. Kate 
was not altogether fancy-free. And Lady Farnleigh’s observa- 
tions and inuendoes upon the subject had not been altogether 
groundless. Poor Kate ! Mr. Frederick Falconer was* about as 
worthy of her, as a black-beetle might be supposed worthy to 
mate with a “ purple emperor ” butterfly. But he was very 
handsome, very gentlemanlike, very well thought of by every- 
body of their little world, could make himself very agreeable 
(when Lady Farnleigh was not present ; when she was, some 
mysterious influence prevented him from doing so), and Kate 
had never seen anything better. So there is the truth, If it be 
insisted on, that the very inmost chamber of her gentle, pure 
little heart, be made the object of a “domiciliary” police visit, 
“documents” might be found there of a “compromising” 
character, so far as the fact goes, that she did feel a sufficient 
interest in Fred Falconer to be disconcerted — no, that is too 
strong — displeased, — even that is too decided ; — to be curious 
about — yes : we will say to be curious about that gentleman’s 
very evident and perfectly well characterized (as the naturalists 
say) flirtation with Miss Merriton. 

And then came the time, very soon after the cloth was 
removed, and always precisely at the same number of minutes 
after it, when Miss Immy rose and led the ladies out of the 


108 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


dining-room. And the dispute between the Doctor and the 
banker raged more furiously than ever. And the Squire and 
Mr. Mat set themselves to investigate Mr. Merriton’s ideas on 
the subject of poaching and game-preserving. And Fred 
Falconer, taking his glass in his hand, went round the table to 
Captain Ellingham,.and made himself very pleasant in all the 
many ways in which an old resident can do so, to a new-comer 
into any social circle. Captain Ellingham went into the 
drawing-room thinking that the banker’s son, though a little 
foppish, was a very good and agreeable sort of fellow. And 
Freddy — who on his side considered himself to have discovered 
that Captain Ellingham had fallen in love at first sight with 
Margaret Lindisfarn — had just carelessly dropped a word to 
the effect that he thought he rather admired Miss Kate most 
for his part, but they were both truly charming girls ; and had 
received an invitation from Captain Ellingham to make one of 
the professed party for a cruise in the cutter. 

As soon as ever they got into the drawing-room. Captain 
Elllingham lost no time in proposing his scheme to Margaret, 
who declared at once that it would be delightful. But instead 
of confiding her delight in the project to him, as he would 
have liked, and making the arrangement a little matter 
between themselves, she chose to accept it with such loud and 
open-mouthed expressions of “ how charming it would be,” and 
such a proclamation of the “ delicious idea Captain Ellingham 
has,” as made all the room parties to the talk between them, 
and to Ellingham’s annoyance, rendered it impossible not to ask 
also the Merritons. 

And then all the young people got round Lady Farnleigh, 
and without much difficulty obtained her consent to act as lady 
patroness, and chaperone general of the party. And then the 
day was to be fixed ; and Lady Farnleigh insisted on turning 
the scheme into a picnic party, and undertaking herself to 
arrange with Miss Immy all about their several contributions 
of comestibles. 

“ I should not permit anybody but you in all the world, dear 
Lady Farnleigh, to treat my ship in such fashion. But you are 
privileged ! ” 

Of course ; that is why I choose to exercise my privilege. 
Go and ask Kate there, and she will tell you that my part 
here is to be fairy godmother ; and always do as I please.” 

And Ellingham did go and tell Kate what Lady Farnleigh 
proposed, and what she had said. And that gave rise to a 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


109 


little conversation between them, from which it appeared that 
they both of them cordially agreed in one point at least — a 
hearty and admiring love for Kate’s godmother. 

Lady Farnleigh having sent off Ellingham on the above 
errand, stepped across the room to the place where Miss 
Merriton was sitting, and taking a seat by the side of her, 
proceeded to make acquaintance with, and take the measure of, 
the new-comer into Sillshire. 

Margaret was then left, to her intense satisfaction, between 
Fred Falconer and Mr. Merriton, and showing her ability to 
deal with all the requirements of that pleasurably exciting but 
somewhat difficult position with consummate tact and ability, 
. was accordingly enjoying herself to the utmost .... when all 
was spoilt by that abominable brick in the brown-paper parcel. 
For a brick it turned out to be ; Margaret could have cried ; 
and the two young men devoutly wished the learned Canon and 
his brick under the sod from which he had poked it out. But 
they did not know that Margaret had brought the brick down 
on their heads by her own false pretences and cajolery. 

She had her punishment. On proceeding with much 
ceremony to the opening of the parcel, which in fact con- 
tained a brick with certain mouldings around it, on which he 
founded a learned and large super-structure of hypothesis 
concerning the date, of the old castle keep at Silverton, the 
Doctor, while saying that he thought the very remarkable relic 
he had there must be interesting to all the party, declared that 
to one of them at least he was very sure it would be a treat. 
And then Margaret had to endure a martyrdom of a com- 
plicated description. She had in the first place to fence so 
skilfully with her uncle as to conceal, as far as possible, her 
absolute and entire ignorance of even the sort of interest which 
was understood to attach to such relics. But this was the easiest 
part of her task, for the Doctor loved better to talk than to 
listen, and was quite ready to give his audience unlimited 
credit for comprehension of and interest in the subject. But 
she had to endure also what she acutely felt to be the ridicule, 
in the eyes of the jeunes gens (as she would have said) who 
were present, of the role of blue stocking and femme-savante 
which was thus thrust upon her ; a role which was super- 
latively repugnant to her, and unassorted to everything that 
she would have wished to appear in their eyes. 

However, by dint of meaning and appealing looks distributed 
“aside” (if that phrase may be used of looks as well as of 


110 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


words) with consummate skill, and little purring, coaxing 
speeches to her uncle, and a liberal use of a whole arsenal of 
the prettiest and most innocent-looking minauderies and little 
kittenish ways imaginable, she came out of the ordeal better 
than could have been expected, and if not without suffering, 
yet with little or no damage in the eyes of anyone there. 

And then came a simultaneous ordering of carriages, and 
departure. 

Dr. Theophilus Lindisfarn packed up his brick while the 
ladies were cloaking themselves, and carried it off as his sole 
companion in the little one-horse shandridan, that so vexed the 
soul of Lady Sempronia. 

Lady Farnleigh and Captain Ellingham got off next. The 
only part of the talk between them that interests us, has been 
already given to the reader. Lady Farnleigh was more pro- 
voked by her friend’s preference for Margaret over her own 
favourite, than the few words she had uttered indicated. 

“ To think,” she said to herself in her meditations on the 
subject, “ that men, and men of sense too, should be fooled by 
their eyes to such an extent ; and by the look too, not of a 
pretty girl, but of a pretty dress ! For Kate’s the finer girl, 
two to one ! It was all that chit’s Parisian get up. Hang 
her airs and graces ! She did look uncommonly well though, 
that is undeniable.” And then Lady Farnleigh being tho- 
roughly minded not to be beaten in the game, which she 
clearly saw was about to begin, and which she was bent on 
playing to her own liking, fell into a meditation on the pos- 
sibility of obtaining for her favourite, those advantages which 
seemed to have done so much for Margaret. But in those days 
of four-and-twenty hours journey by mail between London and 
the provinces, it was not so easy a matter to accomplish any- 
thing in this line, as it might have been in our day of universal 
facilities. 

There was a similar discordance of opinion between the two 
occupants of the Merriton carriage as it returned to the Friary. 
Miss Merriton and her brother indeed both agreed in praising 
the kindness and friendliness of Lady Farnleigh ; but when 
the former was enthusiastic about the charmingness, and such- 
a-dear-girl-ness of Margaret, who had entirely captivated the 
timid little Emily, as she had set herself to do, her brother 
would only answer by praises of Kate. In this case the 
captivating had been a more unconscious and unintentional 
process on the part of the captor. When Mr, Merriton had 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


Ill 


twice dariiig- his conversation with Margaret at dinner 
alluded to his home “in other climes,” and “more genial 
skies,” and had taken nothing by the effort (for such an 
advance towards intimate talk was an effort for him), save an 
nnsympathizing inquiry whether he had lived in Paris, he, as 
he would himself have expressed it, “felt himself chilled.” 
But when he had afterwards in the drawing-room, on Kate’s 
addressing to him some words about the Priary, put out a 
similar feeler for sympathy to her, it had been responded to by 
an enthusiastic declaration on Kate’s part that she longed to 
see Italy ; that it was the dream of her life to be able to do so 
some day, and that she should tease Mr. Merriton to death by 
asking him all sorts of questions on the subject, and all sorts 
of assistance in her difficulties with her Italian studies. 

And so Mr. Merriton was then and there inextricably lassoed, 
and captured on the spot. 

In the comfortable well-appointed carriage which conveyed 
Mr. Falconer and his son to their home in Silverton, a few 
words passed before the senior composed himself to sleep, 
which it may be as well for the purposes of this history to 
record. 

“ I was not so hard at it with the Doctor — who upon some 
points is the wrongest-headed man I ever knew — at my end 
of the table, as not to have observed that you were making 
up to Miss Merriton very assiduously at the other,” said the 
father. 

“ She seems a lady-like, agreeable girl enough, though very 
shy ; ” answered Mr. Frederick. 

“ Yes, I daresay. But you will do well, Fred, to remember 
that there is such a thing as falling to the ground between two 
stools. What do you suppose Miss Lindisfarn thought of your 
very evident flirtation ? ” 

“ There are two Miss Lindisfarns now.” 

“ Yes, more’s the pity ! If these French people — what’s 
their name ? — had not gone the wrong side of the post, it 
would have been on the cards that the Squire might have been 
persuaded not to divide the property; seeing that Miss Mar- 
garet would have been amply provided for. But now ! — It is 
a thousand pities ! ” 

“ Ay ! the Lindisfarn property as it stands, is a very pretty 
thing indeed — a prize for any man.” 

“HaZ/ of it is a prize for any man, you mean — for any man 
who can win the hand of either of the young ladies/* 


112 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ I only meant that the property is one which any man might 
be proud to be at the head of.” 

‘‘And if any man were to marry one of the heiresses who 
had a command of ready cash equal to the share coming to the 
other of them, — who knows what arrangements might be made 
to prevent the splitting or selling of the estate ? ” observed the 
old banker. 

“ What is Miss Merriton’s fortune ? ” asked his son. 

“ Miss Merriton has twenty-five thousand pounds in her own 
absolute disposition ; ” replied the . senior, uttering the words 
slowly and deliberately ; “ but what is that to the half of the 
Lindisfarn property ? ” 

“It is about one thousand a-year instead of about two 
thousand ; ” said Mr. Frederick. 

“Exactly so,” said his father; “to which it maybe added, 
that Miss Kate Lindisfarn has her godmother’s six thousand 
pounds.” 

“ Which would very likely be conditional on the young lady 
marrying with her godmother’s consent, seeing that it is not 
settled money,” returned the young* man. 

“ Possibly, but I should say not likely,” replied his father. 
“ Besides, Fred, I imagined that you had reason to think that 
you did not stand badly with Miss Kate ; and this newly arrived 
young lady ” 

“ Well, Sir,” returned his son, after a pause, “ to speak out 
frankly, and make no secrets between us, this is the state of 
the case. Kate is a charming girl. Nobody can feel that 
more strongly than I do. And it may be, as you say, that I 
may have reason to flatter myself that I am not disagreeable 
to her. But there is another lady in the case, with whom I do 
not flatter myself that I stand at all well. In a word, I am 
quite sure that if Lady Farnleigh can keep me and Kate 
asunder she will do so ; and I fear that she may have the 
power to do it. Kate is very much under her influence. Now 
there can be no doubt at all that Miss Margaret Lindisfarn is 
also an exceedingly charming girl — to my thinking, even more 
fascinating, perhaps, than her sister — and you can easily 
understand, Sir, that under these circumstances, it may be well 
to have two strings to one’s bow.” 

“ That’s all very well,” said the old gentleman. “And now I 
will tell you with equal frankness what seems to me the state 
of the case. In the first place, when I was a young fellow, I 
do not think I should have allowed very much weight to the 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


113 


prejudices of a godmamma, in sucli a matter. In the next 
place, bear this in mind ; that though either of Mr. Lindisfarn’s 
daughters may be considered a desirable — a very desirable 
match — there are reasons for considering Miss Kate the more 
desirable of the two. Not to speak of Lady Farnleigh’s six 
thousand pounds — though that would be a very comfortable 
assistance in any scheme for obtaining the entire property — I 
think that it would be far more possible to persuade the old 
Squire to leave the acres and the old house to Kate, with a due 
sum of money equivalent to Margaret, than vice versa, and 
very naturally so. And to speak with perfect frankness, my 
dear boy, that is the stake to play for. It is not merely the 
money ; though a good match is a good match ; and either of 
these young ladies would be a very good match. But, thank 
God, I shall leave you in a position which makes a good match 
what you may naturally look to. But to be Falconer of 
Lindisfarn Chase — that would be a thing worth trying for ; — 
such a position in the county ! In fact, I don’t mind owning, 
that I could quit the scene with perfect contentment, if I could 
live to see you established in such a position. Nor do I mind 
saying that, supposing as I have no doubt, that you and I go 
on together as well as we always have done — the ready cash, 
which would suffice to buy one-half of the property, should not 
be wanting, if you should ever be lucky enough to need it. As 
for Miss Merriton, though all very well in the way of a match, 
she is not to be mentioned in the same day with either of the 
Lindisfarn girls, and no great catch for you in any way. And 
now, my dear boy, if you’ll allow me. I’ll go to sleep till we get 
to Silver ton.” 

And so Freddy meditated during the remainder of the short 
journey on the words of paternal wisdom which he had 
heard. 

At the Chase, the Squire and Miss Immy went off to their 
respective chambers as soon as ever the last of their guests 
were gone. Mr. Mat walked out, muttering something about 
seeing all safe ; but if the whole truth is absolutely to be told, 
he went and smoked a pipe in the stable before going to bed. 

The two girls went up to their adjoining rooms, but could 
hardly be expected to go to bed till they had, at least com- 
pendiously, compared notes as to their impressions during the 
evening. 

Margaret made no allusion to her antiquarian trials, nor to 
the projected visit to the Fidary. The invitation of Captain 
8 


114 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Ellingiiam was talked of, and a more mature consideration of 
it deferred till the morrow, on account of the lateness of the 
hour to which the debate had already lasted. The most inter- 
esting part of the conversation, however, of course turned on 
the different estimates formed by the two girls of their new 
acquaintances. But without reporting at length all the chatter 
of agreement, disagreement, and comparison of notes, which 
went to the expression of their opinions, the net result may be 
summed up with tolerable accuracy thus. 

Margaret declared that Mr. Merriton was an exceedingly 
agreeable man, evidently highly instructed, very gentlemanlike, 
certainly very handsome, and unquestionably the nicest of the 
three young- men of the party. Mr. Frederick Falconer was 
very handsome and very nice too. Captain Ellingham she 
could see nothing to like in at all ; — except his invitation to 
go on board his ship, which would be charming, as the others 
were all invited. 

Kate said, on the contrary, that she had been much pleased 
with all she had seen of Captain Ellingham ; — that of course, 
as far as liking went, she could not be expected to like him so 
well as her old friend Freddy Falconer ; and as for Mr. Merriton, 
he had seemed to her very good-natured, but more like a school- 
boy who was a rather girlish one than like a man. 

And so ended the dinner-party at the Chase. 


CHAPTER XI. 

MR. MERRITON PAYS SOME VISITS. 

What with the talk about the proposed sailing excursion 
under Captain Ellingham’s auspices, and what with the cala- 
mity of the learned Canon’s brick, nothing had been settled on 
the evening of the party at the Chase, about the visit of Mar- 
garet and her uncle to the Friary. Margaret had been as 
careful to make her communication to Mr. Merriton on that 
pijbject private and confidential j as she had been when spoken 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


115 


to by Captain Ellingbam respecting the sailing project, to 
make all present parties to the conversation. Sbe had also 
avoided saying one word about anj' such idea to Kate. And 
her project was to find the means of availing herself of Lady 
Sempronia’s invitation to the house in the Close, and to go 
with her uncle thence to the Friary, so as to have the visit, and 
the opportunity all to herself. 

All her scheme was foiled, however, by Mr. Merriton, as is 
apt to be the case when two parties to an arrangement do not 
desire precisely the same results from it. Mr. Merriton liked 
the idea of bringing some of his new neighbours together 
under his roof on the occasion which had been thus prepared 
for him. It saved him from the necessity of taking the 
more decided and self- asserting step of inviting them on no 
other plea than the simple one of coming to pay him an ordi- 
nary visit. It made a reason for their being there ; and if the 
gathering were made to grow out of what Margaret had said 
to him at dinner, the great point would be gained of throwing 
mainly on Dr. Lindisfarn the onus and responsibility of finding 
amusement or employment for the people when they were 
there. 

Besides that, Mr. Merriton began to feel very strongly, that 
the only part of sueh a plan which could afford any gratifica- 
tion to himself, would be lost if Kate were not to be of the 
party. 

So on the following morning the new master of the Friary 
ordered his phaeton — Mr. Merriton had passed too large a 
portion of his life abroad to be much of an equestrian — with 
the intention of driving, or being driven, rather, over to 
Wanstrow. Lady Farnleigh had very graciously and kindly 
made acquaintance both with him and with his sister on the 
previous evening ; and it was absolutely necessary to go and 
call on her. 

The house and grounds of the Friary were close to, almost in 
the village of Weston, which was surnamed from the ancient 
monastic establishment. And Weston was situated, as has 
been said, in the valley of the Sill, about two miles above 
Silverton bridge, at a bend in the river just about the spot 
where the widening of the valley has given rise to the creation 
of a system of watermeads. These watermeadows fill the whole 
bottom of the valley all the way from Weston to Silverton, 
lying on the right hand side of the river, as one pursued its 
course for the two miles to Silverton, and the five more that re» 
8— s 


116 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


mained of it before it fell into the sea at Sillmouth. The road 
ran along the left hand side of the valley, at a somewhat higher 
elevation than that of the watermeads ; and the river ran 
between the road and the meadows, dammed up to a level 
a little above that of the latter. The bend in the river at 
Weston was to the right hand of one following the stream 
of it ; — turning the upper part of its course, therefore, towards 
the Wanstrow and away from the Lindisfarn side of the 
country. And the village with its pretty spired church, stood 
on the left bank, on the outside of the elbow of the bend of the 
river, and was visible from Silverton bridge ; whereas the 
ancient Friary itself, and accordingly Mr. Merriton’s house and 
grounds, were on the right bank, enclosed within the elbow of 
the stream, and were not visible from any part of the city. 

Indeed the house was not visible, or scarcely at all visible, 
from the village on the opposite side of the stream, it was so 
completely embowered in trees ; and in one direction partially 
hidden by a jutting limestone cliff, which had been evidently, 
even to non- geological eyes, the cause of the sudden change of 
direction in the river’s course at Weston. On the Lindisfarn 
and Silverton side of the river the colour of the soil was red ; 
but on the Wanstrow side the limestone, which seemed to form 
the substructure, and to constitute the prevailing ingredient 
in the surface soil of the district, gave that side of the country 
a paler, greyer, less rich and less picturesque look than that for 
which the Lindisfarn side was so remarkable. The Wanstrow 
side was also much more sparsely wooded. But these remarks, 
which apply to all that district on the left bank of the river as 
soon as ever the valley of the Sill is left and the upper ground 
reached, are not applicable to the valley itself, to Weston, or to 
the Friary grounds. 

The limestone cliff, which has been mentioned, and which 
just at that turning point of the stream has been denuded by 
the action of the river, and rises to about a hundred and fifty 
feet in height, is there a feature of very considerable beauty in 
the landscape. It is entirely and most richly covered with ivy 
and creeping plants of many kinds, hanging in great festoons, 
and which, availing themselves of every projection or inequality- 
in the face of the rock to mass themselves around it, make 
it the savings bank for a gradually and slowly increasing 
treasure of gathered soil, and then root themselves afresh for a 
new start in the hoard thus collected. Close at the foot of the 
cliff runs the river, which, as soon as ever it has got round it, 


LINDlSFARrT CHASE. 


117 


slackens its speed, widens its course, and having passed its 
tussle with that hard limestone opponent, goes more lazily, 
quietly, and smilingly, to the peaceful work of irrigating the 
water meads. 

There are no watermeads above the bend in the river, and 
the limestone cliff. The character of the upper part of the 
valley is a different one. And I have sometimes felt inclined to 
regret that there is no view of the two-mile vista of water- 
meadows with Silverton at the end of them, from the Friary. 
The cliff, which shuts out this view, is in itself a great beauty ; 
and one cannot have everything. Above Weston the tillage 
comes down nearer to the river on the Lindisfarn side, leaving 
only a narrow strip of meadow, which is not watermead, but 
pasture land. On the Wanstrow side — the side on which the 
Friary is — the same limestone formation, though not rising to 
the same height, nor rising with the same degree of precipitous- 
ness, as it does to form the cliff, shuts in the valley for a few 
miles, making the rise from it exceedingly steep. On this side 
the space of pasture ground between the river and this rapid 
rise is wider. This was the home farm of the old monastery, 
and now forms the park attached to the residence. The high 
bank, which has been described as shutting this ground in, and 
which is in fact the prolongation of the limestone cliff that 
a little lower down turns the river, is entirely covered with 
thick wood ; — not with such magnificent forest as clothes the 
top of Lindisfarn brow ; but with trees of very respectable 
bulk and growth, amply sufficient to shut in the Friary park 
with a very beautiful boundary, and to exempt it entirely from 
that somewhat colder and bleaker look, which the country 
assumes as soon as the valley has been left, and the Wanstrow 
upper grounds approached. 

Mr. Merriton’s way from the Friary to Wanstrow crossed 
the Sill twice at starting. There is indeed a road which 
climbs the bank that has just been described, piercing the 
coppice which covers it. But it is a mere cart lane, and ex- 
ceedingly steep. The cliff which has been so often mentioned 
opposes an insuperable barrier to all progress down the valley 
on the Friary side of the stream, so that it is necessary for 
anyone who would go otherwise than on two legs or on four 
from the Friary to the upper country behind the bank and the 
woods, and the cliff which hem it in, first to cross the Sill by a 
bridge which is the private property of the owner of the Friary, 
and then, after passing through the village, to re-cross it by 


118 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


the bridge which has been mentioned in a former chapter as 
forming a part of the pleasanter though longer of the two 
routes between Wanstrow and Lindisfarn Chase. On the 
lower side of the cliff, which shuts off the upper from the 
lower valley of the Sill, — on the side of the watermeads and 
off Silverton, that is to say, — the land rises from the river to 
the Wanstrow high grounds much more gradually. 

By this road, therefore, Mr. Merriton proceeded in his 
phaeton, lolling comfortably back in one corner of the luxurious 
vehicle, but occupied more with thinking about how and what 
he should say to Lady Farnleigh, than with enjoying the beauty 
of his drive. 

This became less as he left the valley of the Sill behind him, 
and climbed to the more open down-like region of the lime- 
stone hills. The Wanstrow farms were well-cultivated, and 
there was much to gladden the eye of an agriculturist in the 
district through which the road passed. But it not only looked, 
but felt bleaker as the upper ground was reached, and Mr. 
Merriton with a shiver put on a cloak which had been lying on 
the seat beside him. 

It was almost all, more or less, collar work from the bridge 
over the Sill, to the lodge gates of Wanstrow Manor, a dis- 
tance of about five miles. The park in which the house stands 
is of considerable extent, and not altogether devoid of fine 
timber in widely scattered groups. But it is very different 
from the richly wooded country on the other side of the valley 
around Lindisfarn. Immediately behind the house, which is 
situated on the highest swell of the open down-like hill, there 
is rather more wood, serving to give it a little of the shelter it 
so much needs, from the north. But it is little more than a 
large clump of elms. The house is a modern one, of very con- 
siderable pretensions, and containing far more accommodation 
than its present single inhabitant needed or could occupy. 
But the only special beauty or recommendation belonging to it, 
is its southward view of the coast and the sea. The village 
and little port of Sillmouth are visible from it, as well as a con- 
siderable extent of the coast- line on the further or Silverton 
side of the estuary, comprising those sands over which Kate 
had had her gallop on the day of the dinner-party at the 
Chase. The shore on the other or Wanstrow side cannot be 
seen from the house, because though in fact nearer to it as the 
crow flies, it is hidden under the limestone clifis which rise from 
the shore to the eastward of Sillmouth. The sea- view from 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


119 


the house beyond, and to the westward of that little port, is a 
distant one ; but not too much so for it to be possible to see the 
white line of the breakers as they tumble in on the sands at 
low water, and on a black sea-weed-mottled line of low rocks 
when the tide is at its highest. 

Lady Farnleigh was mostly Kate’s companion in her rides 
on the Sillmouth sands ; but she used to say, that on occasions 
when she was not so, she could equally well see all that her 
goddaughter was doing from her drawing-room windows, by 
the aid of a good telescope. 

The sea is visible from the road through Wanstrow Park for 
a mile or so before the house is reached ; and Mr. Merriton, 
whose Italian-grown nerves were very quickly made sensible 
that it could be felt as soon as seen, drew his cloak closer about 
him, as he congratulated himself on the very remarkable dif- 
ference of climate between the snuggery of the Friary and the 
magnificence of Wanstrow Manor. 

There was a garden on the west side of the house which was 
in part sheltered by it, and which partook of the protection 
afforded by the high trees behind it. And Lady Farnleigh 
used to do her best to make it pretty and fragrant ; but she 
declared that it was a pursuit of horticulture under difficulties 
which were almost too discouraging ; and often, whep. com- 
paring the gardens at the Chase with her own infelicitous 
attempts, would threaten to give up the struggle altogether, 
and depend wholly for her flowers on supplies from Lindis- 
farn. 

She was in this garden, lamenting the mischief that had 
been caused by the high wind of the day before, and trying to 
devise with the gardener new means of shelter for some of her 
more delicate favourites, when Mr. Merriton arrived. He was 
shown into the drawing-room ; and the servant, finding that 
her Ladyship was not there, preceded him through the open 
window into the garden. 

“ How kind of you,” she said, after they had greeted each 
other, “to come up out of your happy valley to visit these 
inhospitable mountains ! Look what the storm of yesterday 
has done ; and at the Friary I dare say you hardly felt it at 
all. Our friends at Lindisfarn hear the wind up in the woods 
above them, just enough to make them rejoice in the comfort 
of their sheltered position. You at the Friary neither feel nor 
hear it. But here we are in a different climate. Look at my 
poor geraniums ! ” 


120 


LINDISFAUN CHASE. 


“Even to-day I felt the wind sharp enough as I drove 
through the Park. But at all events, Lady Farnleigh, you 
have the compensation of a magnificent view ! Really the 
position of the house is a very fine one. The Park seems to 
extend nearly — or quite does it ? — to the coast.” 

“ Yes, I am monarch of all I survey up here (except the sea 
by the bye,) and my right there is none to dispute, except this 
terrible south-west wind : and Captain Ellingham says we are 
going to have more of it.” 

“ Raison de plus that you should kindly accede to a request I 
bring from my sister, that you will join our friends at the Chase 
in passing a day at the Friary. My sister would have accom- 
panied me to wait on your Ladyship, but she is very delicate, 
unhappily, and was really afraid of the drive this morning. 
Perhaps you will kindly accord her an invalid’s privilege, and 
take the will for the deed.” 

“ By no means let Miss Merriton come up here as long as 
this wind is blowing. I shall be delighted to see her, as soon 
as I can say. Come ! without the fear of exposing her to the 
climate, which is, joking apart, as different from that of your 
valley as the north of England is from the south. I shall 
have great pleasure in coming down to the Friary, I am sure.” 

“ It seems that Dr. Lindisfarn had purposed bringing Miss 
Margaret, who takes an interest in such things, to the Friary, 
to explain to her all about the old monastery, you know, and 
the traces of the ancient building which yet remain.” 

“Miss Margaret takes an interest in such studies, does 
she?” 

“ Yes,” replied Mr. Merriton quite innocently ; “ she was 
speaking to me about it at dinner yesterday, and I intended 
asking the Doctor after dinner ; but then we were all occupied 
with other things, and I had no opportunity. And then Emily 
and I thought it would be much pleasanter if we could induce 
the others of the party to join in the scheme, and share the 
benefit of the Doctor’s explanations.” 

“ Delightful ! I shall like it above all things. We will have 
a regular matinee arclieologique / ” 

“ I hoped to have found Captain Ellingham here, that I might 
have persuaded him to join us.” 

“ He is gone down to Sillmouth to look after his ship. He 
will be here to dinner this evening, and I shall have much 
pleasure in conveying your invitation to him. But when is it 
to be ? ” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


121 


‘‘Well, any day that would be most convenient to all of us. 
Perhaps, as he is the only one who is likely to have avocations 
that might absolutely make any day impossible to him, it 
would be as well to consult him first on that head.’^ 

“You are very kind ; and I am sure he will feel it so.” 

“Would you kindly undertake then to fix a day with him? 
It is a pity I did not find him, though ; for I meant to have 
returned through Silverton, and fixed the day with the rest of 
the party ; but I shall not know what day to tell them.” 

“ I’ll tell you, Mr. Merriton, what I can do for you, which 
would facilitate matters. I had intended to have asked all our 
little circle to spend a day with me up here. And I, too, thought 
I had better make sure of Captain Ellingham for the same 
reason that you have given. And we fixed this morning on 
next Wednesday. Now I will give up Wednesday to you ; so 
you will be sure of Ellingham for that day. And it will be 
better too for all concerned, to come to me when this terrible 
wind shall have changed. If that will suit you, you are wel- 
come to Wednesday.” 

“ How very kind of you ! Yes, that would suit us perfectly. 
Will you then kindly charge yourself with my message to 
Captain Ellingham? We hope to see him on Wednesday, and 
would have fixed some other day, if you had not kindly given 
me the means of knowing that that day would suit him.” 

“ With pleasure ; and I am sure he will have great pleasure 
in coming to you.” 

“We ought not to be later than one o’clock. There are 
plenty of old holes and corners to look into. There is a queer 
place ab the further end of the park by the river side, which 
they call the Sill-grotto, and which they say was once a chapel. 
That will have to be visited, I suppose ? ” 

“Of course it will. Dr. Lindisfarn will not let you off a 
single bit of old wall, or a single fragment of old tradition 
about the place. No ; one o’clock will not be too early, if the 
Doctor is to be allowed a fair course and no favour.” 

“ Let it stand for one then. I am so much obliged to you. 
Lady Earnleigh.” 

And then Mr. Merriton got into his carriage and drove to 
Silverton. His purpose had been to call first on the Canon, as 
the first idea of the party had in some sort originated with 
him. But it was the hour of the afternoon Cathedral service 
when he arrived in the city, and the Doctor was in church. 

So he went first to the banker’s house in the immediate 


122 


LINDISFARN CH^SE. 


neighbourhood of the Close ; and there, banking hours being 
over, he found the old gentleman in his learned-looking library, 
solacing himself after the labours of the ledger with more 
liberal studies. 

“ Can’t well be with you by one,” said Mr. Falconer, when 
he had heard his visitor’s errand. “ Business first, you know, 
and pleasure afterwards. I can get away, perhaps, in time to 
be with you by three. Fred will not fail you at the earlier 
hour ; not a doubt of it, bearing in mind the attractions you 
hold out to him ! He has ridden over to Lindisfarn now. I 
will give him your invitation, and think I may venture to say 
that he will be only too happy to accept it.” 

“ You are intimate with the family at the Chase, I believe, 
Mr. Falconer ? ” asked Mr. Merriton thoughtfully 

“ Oh, of course 1 Naturally so. We have been life-long 
neighbours, and that in a country neighbourhood makes a tie 
that it does not always in cities. Fred and Kate Lindisfarn 
have grown up from childhood together. And naturally 
enough they are very great friends ; ” said the old banker, 
looking up into his guest’s face with a knowing glance and 
smile, which were intended to insinuate what he did not venture 
to assert in words. “ That is all as might naturally be ex- 
pected, you know,” he continued ; “ and I think I may venture 
to promise you that when I tell Fred who the members of 
your party are, he will be punctual enough in waiting on 
you.” 

Mr. Merriton was much toe young and too guileless a man 
to be able to conceal from the shrewd eye of the old banker 
the annoyance that the impressions thus conveyed to him 
inflicted on him. The old man saw the state of the case per- 
fectly well. ‘‘ Oh ! that’s it, is it ? ” he said to himself. “ The 
more necessary to let him understand that Miss Kate is not 
destined to be his. It will be as well to give Fred a hint, 
too.” 

“ Well,” said the young man somewhat sadly, I must go 
and do the rest of my errand in Silverton. I have to ask 
Dr. Lindisfarn. And oh, by the bye ! you can tell me, Mr. 
Falconer ; ought I to ask Lady Sempronia ? Does she ever go 
out ? ” 

“Ah h! You are going to ask the Doctor, are you? 

Yes, naturally — naturally ; of course you would. You can’t 
well do otherwise.” 

“ Oh, I had no thought of leaving him out j it was Lady 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


12B 


Sempronia that I was in doubt about. The whole idea of the 
thing began with the Doctor, I may say. He is to give us 
an explanation of all the history and antiquities of the old 
place ! 

“ Ah ! I see. I see it all. Yes ; he will give you the 
history, never fear ; all after his own fashion too ! ’’ 

“ I thought you and Dr. Lindisfarn were great friends ? ’’ 
said Mr. Merriton, innocently, and much surprised at the 
spitefulness of the old banker’s manner. 

“ Friends ! Dr. Lindisfarn and I ? To be sure we are, — 
very old friends. I have a very great regard for Canon Lin- 
disfarn, he is a most worthy man. But that does not blind 
me to the monstrosity of the errors his wrong-headedness 
and obstinacy often run him into in matters of archasological 
science. How as regards the history — the extremely interest- 
ing history of your property of the Friary! It is sad, — 

really now quite sad, to think of the number of blunders that 
he will circulate through all the county by the means of your 
party next Wednesday. For these things spread, my dear Sir 1 
They are repeated. False notions are propagated. They run 
under-ground like couch-grass. They become traditional. And 

he will have it all his own way 1 I’ll tell you what, my dear 

Sir, I must be there ! I must manage to be with you somehow 
by one o’clock. I’ll not be late, my dear Mr. Merriton. You 
may count on me.” 

“ So much the better. But about Lady Sempronia ? ” said 
Mr. Merriton. 

“ Oh, ask her, by all means. She goes out very little, and 
will probably not come ; but you can ask her, you know. She 
is a poor, inoffensive, invalid woman, but I have known her 
uncommonly shrewd sometimes in seeing through some of her 
husband’s fallacies, when more learned people have been led 
astray by them. She is no fool, is Lady Sempronia. Ask her 
by all means.” 

So Mr. Merriton stepped across to the Canon’s house — the 
distance was too small to make it worth while for him to get 
into his carriage, — devoutly wishing that Mr. Frederick Fal- 
coner was resting after life’s fitful fever in any vault of the old 
church, beneath the shadow of which he was walkiog a son 
clioix, and cursing the provoking impossibility of not asking 
him to join the party at the Friary. 

The Canon had just returned from the afternoon service, and 
had gone into the study. Mr. Merriton was shown into that 


124 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


room, and found the doctor engaged in transferring his canoni- 
cals from his own shoulders to those of his wooden repre- 
sentative. 

“ Ah, Mr. Merriton ! how are you ? Come in, come in ! 
This is a contrivance of mine to prevent me from forgetting to 
take off my surplice, which I otherwise was apt to do ! ” 

“Ah, having your head full of more important things, 
Dr. Lindisfarn. Yes, I can understand that. I came to speak 
to you about the visit which Miss Margaret Lindisfarn tells 
me you were good enough to purpose making with her to my 
house.” 

“ Aha ! the little puss is anxious for the treat, is she ? You 
would be surprised, Mr. Merriton, at the interest — the intelli- 
gent interest, I may say ; though she is my own niece — that 
that young girl takes in pursuits and studies which some 
frivolous minds are apt to consider dry. Yes, I had proposed 
asking your permission to bring Miss Margaret to the Friary, 
for the purpose of illustrating to her on the spot the very 
interesting history of the house.” 

“And when she mentioned the project to me it struck me 
and my sister that it would be a great pity not to give others 
of our friends an opportunity of profiting by the occasion ; and 
we have asked Lady Farnleigh and the rest of the party at the 
Chase to come to us next Wednesday. May we hope to see 
you on that day, and will one o’clock be too early ? ” 

“ No, you are very good, Wednessday will suit me very well. 
There is the afternoon service at the Cathedral, to be sure ; — 

but in such a case that can be managed. Do you expect all 

the party at the Chase ? ” 

“ I hope so. I have only secured Lady Farnleigh, Captain 
Ellingham, the Falconers, and yourself. I will go up to them 
at the Chase to-morrow.” 

“ Falconer will not be able to come to you at one o’clock, you 
know. He cannot get away from business so early ; and per- 
haps, between ourselves, that is just as well. The best fellow 
in the world. Falconer ! A good friendly man. But he has a 
mania for meddling with matters that are quite ultra crepidam. 
A most excellent man of business ! But optat epliippia bos 
piger ! you understand, Mr. Merriton. And my friend Falconer 
does not show himself to advantage in the epliippia ! Ay, ay ! 

You may depend on it I’ll be punctual at one. And under 

all the circumstances, it would be very desirable that we should 
all be punctual at that hour. Don’t you see, Mr. Merriton ? ” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


125 


Mr. Merriton thought that he did see ; although he had not 
the remotest idea what place or thing or circumstance that 
ejpliiiD'pia was, in which Mr. Falconer was said not to shine. 
Was the epliip^pia perhaps another name for the Friary ? He 
thought he saw, too, that it was best to say nothing of 
Mr. Falconer’s determination to meet his enemy on the ground 
at all costs. So he merely answered : — 

“ I had hoped to have the honour of being presented to 
Lady Sempronia, and to have persuaded her to join our 
party.” 

“ Her ladyship, I grieve to say, is very much of an invalid. 
She will be most happy, however, to make acquaintance with 
you and Miss Merriton. But I fear she would hardly be able 
to see you now ; and I do not think that there is much chance 
of her feeling well enough to join your party on Wednesday. 
I will give her your kind message, however.” 

“ And pray say that were it not that my sister is also much 
of an invalid, she would have returned Lady Sempronia’s card 
in person instead of deputing me to do so. She hopes, how- 
ever, to be able to come into Silverfcon in the beginning of next 
week ; and will then wait on Lady Sempronia.” 

And then Mr. Merriton drove back by the road along the 
edge of the water meadows to the Friary, disconsolately medi- 
tating on what he had heard from Mr. Falconer respecting his 
son’s intimacy at the Chase. For Mr. Merriton had brought 
away with him thence a very severe wound ; and liCBrit lateri 
letalis arundo ! ” 

“Well, Arthur!” said Miss Merriton as he entered the 
drawing-room at the Friary ready for dinner, “ what have you 
done ? Has anything gone amiss ? You seem out of spirits.” 

“ The people are all very civil. Lady Farnleigh was especi- 
ally so. To prevent any jpasticcio about fixing* the day, she 
gave up, or put off rather, a party at her own house for next 
Wednesday, giving up that day to us. So it is fixed for Wed- 
nesday, and to-morrow I will go up to the Chase. All the rest 
have accepted.” 

“ But what is it that has vexed you, Arthur ? for I can see 
that something has.” 

“ Ho ! it’s your fancy. All the people seem inclined to be 
very kind. There’s nothing amiss, that I know of.” 

“ I am sure something has annoyed you, Arthur,” persisted 
his sister, looking him in the face ; “ tell me what it is I ” 

“ I do not know why I should look annoyed, I am sure. I 


126 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


might look surprised ; for I did hear something that surprised 
me in Silverton.” 

“ What about ? ’’ asked his sister. - 
Oh, nothing that concerns us at all. It seems that Fal- 
coner and Miss Kate Lindisfarn are to make a match* of it ; 
that is all. And I confess it does seem to me that he is not 
half good enough for her. I think I never saw a girl who 
made so strong an impression on me.” 

If Merriton had not been so much engrossed by his own 
emotions as to be rendered for the time unobservant of those 
of others, he might have been struck by the fact that his com- 
munication produced a somewhat stronger effect upon his 
gentle sister than appeared wholly attributable to her sisterly 
interest in his feelings. A sudden and deep flush passed over 
her delicate pale face, leaving it the next instant a shade 
paler perhaps than it had been before. She only said, how- 
ever, after a few moments pause, during which she suc- 
ceeded in recovering her composure, or at least the appearance 
of it : — 

“ But how did you hear it, Arthur ? Remember, a great 
deal of groundless nonsense is apt to be talked on such 
matters ; and it is very unlikely that anything should be 
really known on the subject unless they are absolutely engaged 
to each other I do not believe that is the case.” 

“ Engaged ! No, I don’t suppose they are engaged ; or the 
fact would be simply stated.” 

“ What did you hear then, and from whom ? ” 

“ From old Falconer, when I invited him and his son to come 
here on Wednesday.” 

“ What did he say ? ” 

‘‘Well, upon my word, I hardly know what he said. But 
he gave me the impression that it was a sort of understood 
thing that his son and Miss Lindisfarn were to make a match 
of it.” 

“ Miss Kate Lindisfarn ? ” 

“ Yes, Miss Kate Lindisfarn. Oh, he spoke of Miss Kate 

clearly enough! He talked that reminds me of their 

having been near neighbours all their lives, and of their having 
been brought up together, and of their being great friends. 
But somehow or other he left the impression on my mind that 
he meant more than all that. I did not notice,” he continued, 
after a pause, “ anything between them last night, did you ? ” 

“ No, I can’t say that I saw anything of the sort j ” replied 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


127 


his sister. He sat next me at dinner,” she continued, with 
a recurrence in a slighter degree of the blush which the first 
mention of the subject had occasioned her ; “ and after dinner 
he seemed to me to be talking much more to the other sister.” 

“ But that might have been mere civility to a stranger newly 
come among them. The other sister, Miss Margaret, seemed 
to me to have very little in her.” 

‘‘ Oh, I thought her a very nice girl ! ” 

“ She has lived, she told me, all her life till now in Paris ; 
I never like Prench women. They never have any sympathy 
wdth anything, or person, or subject, outside of the barriers of 
Paris.” 

And then the brother and sister went into the dining-room ; 
and the presence of the servants prevented any further con- 
versation upon the subject of the Lindisfarn lasses. 

Frederick Falconer had in the meantime ridden up to the 
Chase, as has been seen, bent on acting upon the sage hints 
that had been thrown out by his father over night as they were 
returning together from the dinner-party, with some little 
modification of his own. He perfectly recognised the justice 
of the old gentleman’s reasons for thinking Kate the more 
desirable match of the two. But he could not bring himself to 
make quite so light as his father was disposed to do, of the 
opposition which he well knew awaited him on the part of 
Lady Farnleigh. He had far better means of knowing, as he 
said to himself, how great her influence over her goddaughter 
was. And besides, though he was by no means deficient in a 
sufficiently high appreciation of his own advantages, and was 
not without a certain degree of hope that Miss Lindisfarn was 
not altogether indisposed to like him, yet he was far from 
having the same degree of confidence on the subject, that 
he had chosen to manifest in speaking to his father. And 
then again, he really was powerfully attracted by Margaret’s 
beauty and manner, and had already began to draw comparisons 
between the two girls, entirely to the advantage of the new- 
comer. He had spent the whole of the two hours he had 
passed at his desk in the bank that morning, before he had 
stolen away from it to ride up to the Chase, in reviewing the 
grounds of such a comparison. Both girls were handsome, — 
there was no doubt about that. But he thought that the more 
delicate and less rustic beauty of the Parisian had more attrac- 
tions for him. Then there was no denying’ that she had more 
style^ more grace, more of le grand air^ said Freddy to himself, 


128 


LINDTSFARN CHASE. 


calling* up his own savoir and experiences. He had a notion, 
too, that her ways of thinking and tastes were probably better 
adapted to his own. There were things in Kate that he did 
not altogether like; that violent passion of hers for tearing 
over the country like a female Nimrod, for instance — her way, 
too, of blurting out whatever came into her head, often with a 
certain look in her eye as if she were laughing at one. He 
had seen no symptom of anything like this in Margaret. In 
fact, the meaning in her eyes, as far as he had seen — and it 
must be admitted, that she had the most exquisitely expressive 
eyes that were ever seen in a human head ! — had been charac- 
terized by anything but an expression of ridicule when they 
had rested on him. 

In short, though perfectly well aware that it behoved him to 
win the heart and hand of Kate, if he could, he had pretty well 
made up his mind that it would be a far more agreeable task 
to him to win those of Margaret. But there was something in 
Mr. Frederick’s constitution and natural disposition, which dis- 
inclined him from paying much attention to that part of his 
father’s counsel which had alluded to the danger of falling 
between two stools. Two stools seemed to Mr. Freddy so much 
better and safer than only one. Surely it was not prudent to 
put all one’s eggs into one basket ! Surely two strings to one’s 
bow were admitted to be a good thing ! He could not bring 
himself to back himself frankly and heartily to win with the 
one horse, to the entire giving up of all hopes of the other. 
The unknown quantities that entered into the problem to be 
solved, were so much larger than the known ones, that he felt 
it to be far the most prudent plan to keep the matter open as 
long as might be, make what progress he could, without com- 
mitting himself irrevocably on either side, and be guided by 
circumstances. 

It would be far from wise, too, to disregard such a pis-aller 
as Miss Merriton. Fis-aUer! Twenty-five thousand pounds 
absolutely her own, and her brother looking as if a good sharp 
English spring might make an end of him ! A very pretty 
pis-aller, indeed. It was all very well for his father to talk in 
that way, when he had set his heart on going in for the whole 
of the Lindisfarn property. But there was many a slip between 
that cup and the lip. Miss Merriton was a very charming little 
girl. He had a strong persuasion that he might have her for 
the asking ; or at least, that after a due period of service for 
such a pretty little Bachel, he might make sure of her. And 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


129 


it would be very unwise to throw such a chance to the winds 
before he was sure of something better. 

It was in this frame of mind that Mr. Frederick locked up 
his desk, after sitting at it for a couple of hours ; and slipped 
out of the bank to order his horse and ride up to the Chase. 
Mr. Falconer senior was very indulgent to his son and heir as 
to the amount of attendance he exacted from him at the bank, 
if only the hours spent away from it, were used advantageously 
in a social point of view ; and he was especially well pleased 
at all times, and more particularly after the conversation of 
the night before, to know that his son was up at Lindisfarn 
Chase. 

So Mr. Frederick had arrived there, still looking, as Lady 
Farnleigh had said, for all the world as if he had just been 
taken out of the band-box in which a London tailor had sent 
him down for the enlightenment and instruction of Sillshire, 
just as the ladies were about to sit down to luncheon. 


END OF PART IV, 


130 


LINDISFARN CHASB. 


mt 


CHAPTER xn. 

Fred’s luncheon at the chase. 

Mr. Frederick Falconer arrived at the Chase just as the 
ladies were going to sit down to luncheon. The ladies were 
Miss Iinmy and the Lindisfarn lasses. And they were about 
to partake of that meal specially sacred to ladies and ladies’ 
men alone. It was a great opportunity for Freddy. There 
was neither Lady Farnleigh nor Mr. Mat. In the presence of 
either of those persons, Mr. Freddy was, as the old story 
records Punch to have declared himself to have felt, when 
Mrs. Carter who translated Epictetus was among his audience, 
unable to “talk his own talk.” Freddy Falconer could not 
talk his own talk, when either Lady Farnleigh or Mr. Mat was 
present. 

But on the present occasion all evil influences were absent, 
and all good ones were in the ascendant. There was Miss 
Immy in high good humour ; there was the minced veal and 
mashed potatoes; beautiful golden-coloured butter, and the 
home-made loaf ; a currant tart, and a bowl of Sillshire cream ! 
There was the decanter of sherry for Miss Immy ; the small 
jug of amber ale for Miss Kate, the carafe of sparkling water 
for Miss Margaret. The malignant fairy godmother was far 
away up in her wind-swept garden at Wanstrow ; the Squire was 
beating the turnips in a distant field, and the odious Mr. Mat 
was trudging by his side. Had ever a ladies’ man a fairer 
field? Nor can it be by any means said that he had no 
favour ! 

Both the young ladies, as we already know, were more or 
less favourably disposed towards him, each after her own 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


131 


fashion. And Miss Immy was one of those who are disposed 
to allow their fullest weight to the claims of old neighbour- 
hood and long acquaintanceship. Freddy Falconer, too, had in 
her eyes, the paramount advantage over either of the other two 
young men who had been there the previous evening, of being 
thorough Sillshire. Captain Ellingham and Mr. Merriton were 
both strangers and new acquaintances, which made a very 
notable difference to Miss Immy. 

“ And what do you think of our new importations into Sill- 
shire ? asked Kate, when Fred had been cordially asked to 
take some luncheon, and was comfortably established by the 
side of one of the young ladies, and opposite to the other. 
Kate was sitting opposite to Miss Immy, and Margaret on the 
side of the table nearest the fire, between them. Mr Fred 
therefore took the goods the gods provided him — i.e.^ minced 
veal, potatoes and sherry, currant tart and Sillshire cream 
— in a position yet more shone on by the rays of beauty 
than that of Philip’s warlike son at the Koyal feast for Persia 
won ! — a position more brilliant, but more difficult also than 
that of Alexander. 

“ What do you think of our new importations into Sill- 
shire ? ” said Kate. 

“The Merritpns, or Captain Ellingham? Which are you 
alluding to ? ” 

“To both. But you knew the Merritons before, did you 
not ? ” 

“ Not I ! I never set eyes on either of them till they came 
down here. They were old friends, I fancy, of our business 
connections in London. I think my father had seen Mr. 
Merriton in London.” 

“ Quite a young man he seems,” said Kate. 

“ Oh yes ! A boy rather one might say. He has just come 
of age. And upon my word he looks as if an English winter 
would do for him. Poor fellow ! I should say he would have 
done more wisely to settle in his mother’s country — in Italy — 
where he has spent most part of his life.” 

“Oh, in Italy? ” said Margaret. “He told me yesterday at 
dinner that he had lived abroad ‘ most of his life.’ ” 

“ Yes, and when a man has done that, he is rarely fit for 
English life in any way.” 

“ Oh, don’t say so, Mr. Falconer ; or I shall fancy that I am 
not fitted for English life, or that you don’t think me so,” said 
Margaret, with a look of the most tenderly appealing reproach- 
9—2 


132 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


fulness in her eyes, as pathetically eloquent as if she had been 
expecting her doom from the arbiter of her destiny. 

“ Nay ! it is quite a different thing in the case of a lady,” 
said Freddy, colouring a little. “ The foreign ways and 
manners, which are apt to make a man perhaps not altogether 

what ladies like in this country — or gentlemen, indeed, 

either, for that matter — only serve to add new grace to one of 
the other sex. Besides, there is a vast difference between Italy 
and Paris. There is, as all the world knows, no charm equal 
to that of a Parisian woman,” said Mr. Freddy, with the 
enthusiasm of intense conviction. 

“ Is there no chance then for poor home-bred Zillshire 
volk ? ” asked Kate, with a laugh in her voice, and roguish 
quizzing in her eyes, and just the least little bit of pique in 
her heart. 

‘‘ Now, Miss Kate, you know how far that is from my feeling 
in the matter. Surely you and I are much too old friends to 
misunderstand each other upon such a point.” 

The position was a difficult one. The worst of it was, that 
there was no possibility of making any by-play with the eyes ! 
What the tongue says may almost always be modified suffi- 
ciently for all purposes, if one can but find the means of sup- 
pl3dng a running commentary with the eyes, addressed to one 
special reader. But Fred’s situation, with one lady opposite to 
him, and one at right angles to him, shut him out from that 
resource ; unless, indeed, from such very limited use of it as 
could be resorted to by seizing and making the most of the 
opportunities afforded him by the momentary employment of 
one of the two pairs of bright eyes, under the cross-fire of 
which he was sitting’, on a plate or a drinking-glass. And 
even so, there was very little good to be done with Kate in this 
fashion, unless it was in the way of laughing. Kate would 
laugh with you or at you, with her eyes, as much as you pleased 
— would answer a laugh in your eyes, and answer it openly 
or aside, as the case needed. But she did not seem to 
understand any tenderer eye-language. Or if she did, she 
would not talk it with Freddy Falconer, old friends as they 
were. 

And that was the reason why, after that luncheon-table cam- 
paign was over, Fred felt that he had made more progress that 
day with Miss Margaret than with Miss Kate. 

As regarded Mr. Merriton, however, he found the latter more 
inclined to agree with him than the former. Notwithstanding 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


133 


Kate’s wish to be good-natured, and to make herself and their 
new neighbourhood generally agreeable to the strangers, and 
the reality of the interest she had expressed to Mr. Merriton 
about Italy and Italian places and things, he had seemed to her 
rather a feckless sort of body — rather a poor creature. And 
Kate was about the last girl in the world to like a man who 
belonged in any degree to the category of “ poor creatures,” or 
to admit that the absence of manliness and vigour could 
be atoned for by elegance of manner and advantages of 
person. She was not disposed to undervalue his capacity for 
assisting her in her study of Dante. But she would have 
been more inclined to like him, if her attention had been called 
to his capacity for riding well up to hounds. Doubtless she 
would have preferred a cavalier equally calculated to shine in 
the field and in the study ; but if one good quality out of the 
two could be had only, I take it Kate would have decided for 
the hounds, and Dante would have gone to the wall. I do not 
say, be it o'bserved, that Kate Lindisfarn was a very charming 
girl because of this ; I only say that she was a very charming 
girl, and that such was the case. 

As for Margaret, she would have cared nothing at all about 
the riding' to hounds ; and truth to say, very little indeed about 
the capacity for understanding Dante. And, as we know, she 
was “ a very charming girl,” too. But some of the value of 
that phrase of course depends upon the object on whom the 
charm operates, and by whom it is recognised. Now there can 
be no doubt at all that Margaret was a very particularly 
charming girl to Mr. Falconer, despite her disagreement with 
him about Mr. Merriton. 

“ For my part,” said she, shooting across the table one of 
those glances with which young ladies, who are properly up in 
all the departments of eye language, know how to render such 
a declaration rather agreeable than oth^wise to the receiver of 
it — “ For my part, I think you are too hard upon poor Mr. 
Merriton. It is unfair to expect that he should possess all the 
advantages which can only come from a wider and larger 
knowledge of the world.” 

“ Really, Miss Margaret, I had no intention of being hard on 
him,” said Falconer, returning her look with interest ; “ and I 
shall have less inclination than ever to be so, of course — (eye 
commentary here, intelligible to the merest tyro in that 
language) — if you take him under your protection.” 

“ I did not mean to say a word,” put in Kate j ‘‘ and really I 


134 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


don’t think there is a word to be said against his manner. It 
is that of a very young man, that is all.” 

“ That is it,” said Margaret, cvveo intention, and looking as 
she spoke, not at her sister, but at Falconer, “ I never can find 
such mere boys very agreeable.” 

“ I agree with Mr. Frederick,” said Miss Immy ; “ my notion 
is, that if the poor- wished lad had been born and bred in Zill- 
shire, he would not have looked for all the world as though he 
had lived on sugar and water and sweet biscuits all his life, 
like Miss Lasseron’s Italian greyhound ! ” 

“ And what about the other new comer among us ? ” said 
Falconer, not addressing himself to any one of the party more 
than to another. “ What of Captain Ellingham ? ” 

“ Now that is being harder than ever upon poor Mr. Merriton, 
to bring the two men into contrast in that way,” said Kate. 

“Well! I confess I cannot agree with you there, Kate,” 
said her sister. “ If there is any hardness in the matter, I 
think it is all the other way, for my part.” 

“ Oh, Margaret, how can you think so,” said Kate, with some 
emphasis. 

“And I do not think Mr. Falconer had any notion of making 
a comparison that would be disadvantageous to Mr. Merriton, 
at all events,” added Margaret. 

“ Indeed I had not,” replied Falconer. “ I found Captain 
Ellingham markedly civil ; and I have not a word to say in his 
disparagement in any way. I do not doubt that he is a most 
able and meritorious officer, notwithstanding the position he 
occupies in the service. Of course, from merely passing an 
evening in a drawing-room with two men, one can form no 
opinion except as to their general exterior agreeability ; and as 
far as that goes, I confess that I think Merriton has all the 
advantage.” 

“ Why what in the world did you see in Captain Ellingham 
to make you take an aversion to him ? ” asked Kate. 

“ I did not take an aversion to him the least in the world, I 
assure you, my dear Miss Lindisfarn 1 On the contrary. But 
it seems that I only shared the impression he made upon your 
sister.” 

“ I own that I did not see anything particularly attractive 
about him, notwithstanding all that Lady Farnleigh said in his 
praise,” said Margaret. 

“ Is he a great friend of Lady Farnleigh’s then ? ” asked 
Falconer, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


135 


. Oh yes, and according to her, he is a chevalier sans peur et 
sans reproclie ; — a mirror of all the virtues ! I daresay he may 
be ; but ’’ 

“Oh, Lady Farnleigh’s approbation is quite sufficient to 
tecure to the fortunate possessor of it that of your sister, Miss 
Margaret,” said Falconer, with some little appearance of pique 
in his manner. “When you liave been a little longer an 
inmate of the Chase, you will doubtless make that discovery 
for yourself.” 

“ And if I pinned my faith upon anybody’s judgment in all 
the world, I am very sure that I could not have a safer and 
better guide,” cried Kate with some vehemence ; “ and I have 
no doubt Margaret will discover that too, before she has been 
here long. Perhaps I should be wiser,” she added, with a 
momentary half-glance at Falconer, “ if I followed her guidance 
in all cases more implicitly.” 

“ I am sure no one could doubt the excellence of Lady Farn- 
leigh’s judgment on the subject,” said Freddy, looking rather 
discomfited ; “ but probably she was speaking of Captain 
Ellingham as of an old friend and contemporary of her own.” 

“ Hardly that, I should think,” said Kate. “ Why how old 
a man should you take Captain Ellingham to be ? ” 

“ Well, he is one of those men who may be almost any age ; 
but I should say he must be on the wrong side of forty,” 
replied Falconer. 

“ Impossible ! ” cried Kate. “ I am no judge of people’s 
ages ; but to my notion, Captain Ellingham seems quite a 
young man.” 

“ A young man, Kate ! why he is quite grey. I declare he 
looks every bit as old as Mr. Mat.” 

“ He certainly is very grey, both on the head and about the 
beard,” said Freddy ; “ but that is not the worst of it. There 
are certain lines about the face......” 

“ I don’t think a man’s appearance is at all injured by a few 
grey hairs among the black ones ; and as for the lines,- a face 
is far more interesting to me, that looks as if the owner had 
been doing something else all his life than thinking of taking 
care of it ! ” cried Kate, in her usual impetuous way, having 
been provoked into saying more than she would otherwise have 
done, by the spitefulness of Falconer’s remarks, and by his 
attack on her with reference to Lady Farnleigh. 

“ Oh ! if Kate prefers grey-beards, there can be no more to 
be said on tho subject, you know, Mr. Falconer. Affaire de 


136 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE. 


gout ! We have only to remember it and to respect it, n^esUce 
pas ! ” said Margaret. 

“ But is there nothing worth talking of except beards, either 
grey, black, or brown ? What of the other new arrivals ? 
What of Miss Merriton ? On that subject I am sure, Mr. 
Frederick ought to be able to enlighten us, for he was studying 
it all dinner-time.” 

‘‘ What else was there for me to do, unless it were to eat my 
dinner in silence ? ” remonstrated Falconer. “My opinion was 
not wanted in the discussion that was going on about poachers, 
between your father and Lady Farnleigh and Mr. Mat. I 
could not venture to do Mr. Merriton such wrong as to prevent 
him from consecrating all his attention to Miss Margaret, as he 
seemed so particularly well inclined to do. What else remained 
for me, except to do the civil, as indeed I was in every way 
bound to do, to Miss Merriton? ” 

“ Of course, you could do no otherwise,” said Margaret ; 
“ and now give us the result of your investigations.” 

“The result is very soon and very easily stated,” replied 
Freddy. “ Miss Merriton is a perfectly lady-like, well-edu- 
cated, very timid, very shy, and, I should say, very uninterest- 
ing young lady. There is no fault to be found with her. But 
neither is there anything except negative good to be said of 
her.” 

It seemed to be more easy for the little party around the 
luncheon- table to come to an agreement on this subject, than it 
had been on the, it must be supposed, more interesting topic of 
the lords of the creation. For there was little dissent from the 
judgment pronounced by Mr. Frederick on the quiet and un- 
obtrusive little creature whose chief title to notice in the world 
— her twenty-five thousand pounds in her own absolute dispo- 
sition — he had not deemed it necessary to touch on in summing 
up her claims to consideration. 

And then the ladies rose to quit the table, and Mr. Frederick 
took his leave, and rode back slowly to Silverton, pondering 
many things in his mind. His visit had very manifestly done 
little towards forwarding his views, as far as they coincided 
with those of his father. He had accomplished as serious an 
amount of fiirtation with Miss Margaret as could have been 
expected from the circumstances. But he had, if anything, lost 
rather than gained ground with Miss Kate. The progress in 
either case, was, however, he said to himself, probably infini- 
tesimal. But he thought that the advance he had made 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


137 


towards attaining a necessary and accurate view of his position, 
and of the state of the game, was greater and more important. 

“ Lady Farnleigh means Kate for her penniless protege, 
Captain Ellingham.” That was the first datum which he 
thought might be with tolerable certainty deduced from his 
observations. “ She has already begun to work towards that 
end ; and has already achieved a commencement of success. 
How fierce the little lady was, when I ventured to sneer at her 
being led by the nose by her godmother ! And I did not see 
the least sign which could encourage me to think that I can 
fight against that influence with success. Ko ! to be honest 
with myself and keep clear of delusions, no sign ; as long as 

I had the field all to myself it might have been different 

might have been. But now it would be a race carrying very 
heavy weight. 

“ Then,” continued his meditations, “ on the other side 

there are signs. I have done more with Margaret in two days, 
than I have done with Kate in twice as many years, by Jove ! 
The fact is, there is more sympathy between us. Put all con- 
siderations of prudence out of the question, I swear I would not 
hesitate a minute. What a graceful, elegant-mannered, intelli- 
gent, exquisitely pretty little creature she is. I am strongly 
inclined to think, let the old gentleman say what he will, that 
Margaret should be my game — out and out, without any shilly- 
shally. 

“ The one seems possible enough ; the other looks to me 
very much like being impossible. If that detestable old woman 
up at Wans trow means to make her marry Ellingham — and 
I have very little doubt upon that point — she will succeed 
in doing it. I don’t think she could turn Margaret round 
her finger in that way. There is a different sort of character 
there. 

“ And suppose I determine to play for Margaret out and out, 
and throw over at once all hope of the other ; is the specula- 
tion so much worse an one ? That old Wanstrow woman’s 
six thousand pounds are not worth counting. Pshaw ! But 
about the place. Every word my father says about the im- 
portance of such a prize is true. The old boy is right enough 
there. But would it be so much more difficult to win Lindis- 
farn with Margaret than with Kate ? I doubt it. Specially if 
I am to assume that Kate marries Ellingham. How is he, a 
man without a penny in the world, to find the means of paying 
half the price of the Chase estates ? A good fifty thousand 


138 


LINDTSFARN CHASE. 


would be needful, if a penny. Would it be likely that suck a 
man should see his interest in causing the estates to be sold? 
With delay, uncertainty, expense ? Would it not be very much 
more likely, supposing that he were to marry one girl, and I 
the other, that he would be exceedingly glad to accept the old 
gentleman’s cash to the amount of half the value of the pro- 
perty ? Is there any ground for imagining that the Squire 
would make an objection to such an arrangement, if desired by 
all the parties concerned ? I cannot see it. If he held by the 
old name, I should make no difficulty about accomodating him. 
— ‘Falconer Lindisfarn, Esquire, of Lindisfarn.’ — That would 
do remarkably well. Or ‘ Sir Falconer Lindisfarn ! ’ better 
still ; and why not ? Yes, I think, I thinh that will be the 
game, the more prudent as well as the pleasanter game to 
play. Honestly, I do think so. But what about that fellow 
Merriton ? Kate would never marry him. Is there any 
danger of his cutting me out with Margaret ? She was more 
inclined to like him, than that boisterous, violent, upright and 
downright Kate ! But I have a great notion that that was all 
a mon adresse! She has far more manner, far more know- 
ledge of the world than her sister in that respect. And I 
fancy, too, that she is one who would have the sense to know 
on which side her bread is buttered. And I hardly think 
Merriton would be in a position to make her mistress of Lin- 
disfarn. I don’t know, I must ask my father how that is ; but 
I think not. Besides, I do flatter myself that I could cut out 
that boy ! ” 

So by the time Freddy had reached his father’s door, he may 
be said to have pretty well made up his mind to enter himself, 
as he phrased it to his own mind, for the Margaret sweepstakes 
in thorough earnest, make a straightforward race of it, and run 
his best. 

Frederick Falconer was,, it will have been seen, a shrewd 
man, not under the empire of self-delusion, and with a con- 
siderable gift of seeing characters and things as they really 
were. The net result of what had taken place at the Inncheon- 
table at the Chase as regarded the others of the party who had 
been sitting at it, was not very different from what he had felt 
it to be. But he had not only made progress with the one 
sister, but had in a yet greater degree advanced his supposed 
rival’s cause with the other. Kate had felt much more dis- 
posed to feel a liking for Captain Ellingham after that luncheon, 
than she had previously. She had defended him ; — a very 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


139 


strong tie of attacliment for natures like Kate’s. She had 
thought that he was being unfairly and ungenerously run dovrn. 
And — strongest contribution of all to the net result — she had 
been made to feel as if he were on the side of her godmother, 
and the others on the contrary side. 

On the following day, the Lindisfarn ladies had another 
guest at their luncheon-table. Mr. Merriton drove up to the 
Chase, as he had told Lady Farnleigh he would do, to give his 
invitations to the Friary for the following Wednesday. They 
were given and accepted, as far as the younger ladies were 
concerned (for Miss Immy pleaded important engagements at 
home ; and all the ladies declared that they could not answer 
for the Squire, but thought they might for Mr. Mat) ; rather 
to Margaret’s disgust. She accused Mr. Merriton in her 
heart of being very stupid for not preferring to have her and 
her uncle there alone, as she had projected and prepared for 
him. And, moreover, she did not look forward with any 
pleasure to what she feared would probably happen, when the 
whole party should be there together. She did not at all like 
being trotted out in the character of an archaeological blue- 
stocking. The double necessity and incompatibility of hiding 
her utter ignorance and indifference on the one hand, and 
making them evident on the other, was embarrassing and dis- 
agreeable. 

Nevertheless it was impossible to refuse ; and the Lindisfarn 
lasses promised to be at the Friary at one o’clock on the 
Wednesday, either under the escort of Mr. Mat, or, if that 
should fail them, with Lady Farnleigh. 

Margaret, being out of humour, had rathed snubbed Mr. 
Merriton. But he had proposed to Kate to show her and ex- 
plain to her on Wednesday a volume of “Piranesi’s Views in 
Borne.” And on her replying, in her good-humoured, lively 
way, that she should enjoy nothing so much, and should greatly 
like to see the Eternal City, he had gone away more in love 
with her than ever, and dreaming of the delight of returning 
to Italy with such a bride, and initiating her into all its glories, 
beauties, and enjoyments. 


140 


LTNDISFARN CHASE, 


CHAPTER XIIL 

THE PARTY AT THE FRIARY, 

Lady Sejmpronia, when at dinner the Canon had communi- 
cated to her Mr. Merriton’s invitation, rather to her husband’s 
surprise signified her intention of accepting it. 

“ I had hardly hoped,” he said, “ and did not give Mr. 
Merriton much hope, that you would be induced to go to the 
Friary; but you are quite right, my dear, to look upon this 
occasion as a somewhat extraordinary one. There is not a 
more interesting locality in the county, and I flatter myself that 
I shall be able to make the day a profitable, and indeed a 
memorable one for all present.” 

And during all the intervening days, the doctor was in a state 
of pleasurable excitement and anticipation, and worked hard to 
have every part of the subject in a complete state of prepara- 
tion. He would have given a good deal to have secured the 
entire absence of Mr. Falconer. But he reckoned, taking the 
usual habits of that archaeological financier as a base for his 
calculations, that he should have a good two hours and a half 
before him, ere the banker could arrive. 

It was not without considerable disquietude and surprise, 
therefore, that just as the modest one-horse chaise which was 
conveying the Canon and Lady Sempronia to the Friary, was 
jogging along the main street of the little village of Weston, 
while it yet wanted five minutes to one o’clock, the Doctor 
saw the banker’s handsome carriage, with its smart pair of 
bays, dash past and turn at the end of the village down the 
road to the private bridge over the Sill, which leads to the 
Friary house. 

“ Good Heavens ! There is Falconer ! ” he exclaimed, turn- 
ing pale. “ But it is impossible ! It can’t be. It must be 
Frederick, and the carriage is going back for his father. Odd 
that the young man should not have ridden over, too j but I 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


141 


suppose as the carriage was ordered out, he thought it as well 
to make one job of it.” 

“ And if it were Mr. Falconer,” said Lady Sempronia, what 
then ? I cannot see, Dr. Lindisfarn, that you can pretend to a 
monopoly of all the old stones in the county. Though no 
doubt you are the only individual in it who would deprive your 
family of necessaries to spend your substance on such things. 
Mr. Falconer can afford to play the fool.” 

“ That is fortunate, my dear,” returned the Doctor ; for it 
is what he assuredly very often does.” 

And then, when the Canon’s carriage drove up to the door of 
the Friary, at which Mr. Merriton was standing to receive his 
guests, the Doctor, as he alighted, saw behind him the pig-tail, 
and the florid, complacent face, and the well-grown, black-silk- 
encased legs, of the Silverton banker. Giving a silent shake 
of the hand to his host — for he could not at the moment spare 
time or words for a longer greeting — and leaving him to 
receive and welcome Lady Sempronia as best he could, he made 
one stride towards his enemy, crying out : “ Is it possible, Mr. 
Falconer ? You here at this time in the morning ? In truth 

this is a a circumstance ” — the word pleasure stuck in the 

veracious Doctor’s throat; — “which I had not expected. I 
hope that Mr. Merriton is aware that you have broken in upon 
all your habitudes,— innovated on the practice of — how many 
lustres shall I say ? — in order to wait on him I ” 

“ My friend Merriton is, I trust, aware, Doctor, that I would 
do more than that for him, if need were,” said the banker, with 
a bow and a sly wink aside to the young man. 

“I am quite aware, my dear Sir,” said Merriton, returning 
the banker’s telegraph, “how much Mr. Falconer is deranging 
his usual habits in order to give us the pleasure of his com- 
pany. It is very kind of him.” 

“ But business, Mr. Falconer ! What will the bank do with- 
out you ? ” 

“ Oh, the bank can take care of itself, for once and away. 
Doctor. The fact is, if Merriton will forgive me for confessing 
the entire truth,” continued the banker, eyeing his victim with 
a sweet and complacent smile, “that had our meeting here 
to-day been of merely an ordinary festive character, I might 
have contented myself with enjoying such share of it as I 
could have come in for after business hours. But when it 
became known to me that the party were to have the treat of 
inspecting the antiquities of the Friary under your auspices, 


142 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Doctor, and the advantage of your explanations of them, 
I could not resist the temptation of being present. I could 
not indeed ! ” And then Mr. Falconer took a long pinch of 
snuff, with an air that included in it the expression of a defiance 
to mortal combat. And the mortified Canon knew what was 
before him, and saw that the treat to which he had been look- 
ing forward with so much pleasure, had been snatched from his 
grasp. 

Not that he was afraid of his adversary ; or at all dis- 
inclined to a fair stand-up fight with him for any number of 
hours by the Friary clock. That also was a pleasure in its 
kind ; but it was of a different sort from the more luxurious 
and seducing one which he had promised himself, of having it 
all his own way, and leading a troop of admiring and un- 
questioning women from one subject of his learning and elo- 
quence to another. 

And then they passed on to the drawing-room, where Mr. 
Frederick was found busily engaged in prosecuting those 
investigations into the social qualities of Miss Merriton, which 
had hitherto only led him, as he had assured the ladies at the 
Chase, to the conclusion that she was a wholly uninteresting 
little iDody. 

And then came Lady Farnleigh and Captain Ellingham ; and 
not very long after them the Lindisfarn damsels with Mr. Mat. 
It was nearly half-past one before they arrived j and there was 
a chorus of outcry at their unpunctuality. 

“ Not like you, Kate, to be the laggard ! And it was to be 
one o’clock, military time. We have already had the first of 
our course of lectures,” said Lady Farnleigh. 

“ Ah ! I was not on Birdie, you see, Godmamma. When I 
am, I can answer for my time. But we had to come all 
round by Silverton ; and Thomas must be answerable for the 
delay.” 

“ Thomas is as regular as clockwork ; and if you had started 
in time you would have been here in time,” rejoined the Doctor, 
not in the best possible humour, though he had no longer 
reason for being anxious to begin the day’s amusement punc- 
tually. 

“Well Uncle, we will behave better another time.” 

“No, no, put the saddle on the right horse,” said Mr. Mat; 
“ Thomas Tibbs is no way in fault ; nor is Miss Kate. We 
had to wait half-an-hour for Miss Margaret.” 

“ Why, I am sure we came down together, didn’t we, Kate ? ” 


LTNDISFABN CHASE. 


143 


said Margaret, bluslimg very red, and shooting at Mr. Mat out 
of those fine black eyes of hers, a look of which it might have 
been said not only in the Yankee tongue, but in good English, 
that it was “a caution ! ” 

“ Yes,” said the abominable Mr. Mat, quietly ; “ you came 
down the stairs together, because Kate waited for you. But it 
was you and not Kate, who tried on three dresses before you 
could please yourself. Ask Simmons else.” 

“ There never was half-an-hour spent to better purpose, if 
Simmons spoke the truth,” whispered Frederick, at Margaret’s 
side. “ What a lovely toilette ! ” 

“ Do you like it ! Then I am sure I don’t mind how long I 
kept that old bear waiting,” returned Margaret, in the same 
tone ; “ not that what he says is true, though. But is he not 
an insufferable old nuisance ? ” 

“ Our likings agree,” said he ; “ Mr. Mat is a particular 
aversion of mine; and he knows it well enough. There is no 
love lost between us. Strangely enough, your sister is fond of 
him.” 

“ Ob, Kate is so odd ; so odd in many things. I am afraid 
she and I shall find many points of difference between us.” 

“ It will be a great advantage to your sister — your return 
home. Miss Lindisfarn. If she would endeavour to form her 
manner from yours, it would be everything to her.” 

“ Of course I have had great advantages, which poor Kate 
has not shared. But I flatter myself that the generality of the 
good people here are not so capable as some persons ” — (eye 
practice !) — “ of seeing the deficiencies.” 

“Would you be better pleased for her sake, that all the 
people here should be blind to the differences between you, 
Mademoiselle Marguerite ? ” 

“I am afraid that would tax my charity too severely,” 
answered she, in a tone so low, that it was almost a whisper. 
Then she added, in a rather, but very little, louder voice, “ You 
call me Marguerite. You are the only person here that does. 
I like it so much better than that odious Margaret, as they call 
it ! Do call me always Marguerite.” Whether this was to be 
taken as a permission to call her by her Christian name, or 
merely as a request to be addressed in French instead of in 
English, she skilfully left it to the gentleman himself to decide. 

Then, it having been resolved by general vote that one por- 
tion of the avowed business of the day should be done before 
going to luncheon, and that it would be very pleasant to break 


144 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tlieir archasological investigations by that agreeable diversion, 
the Doctor arose, and proceeded to unrol a large plan which he 
had brought with him, while most of the party crowded around 
him. 

“ Where is Margaret ? ” cried the Doctor ; “ Margaret, my 
love ; here is your place, by my side. You are to be my 
fellow labourer, you know, in illustrating the Friary as it 
deserves.’’ 

Margaret groaned softly, and looked up into Frederick Fal- 
coner’s face with an appealing expression of intense annoyance 
in her eyes, which made them look lovelier, he thought, than 
he had ever seen them yet, as she said : “ I must go, I sup- 
pose ! It is very provoking. Mind, I trust to you to save 
me from this horrid bore, if any chance of extricating me 
should offer.” 

“ Would that I could,” whispered Fred. 

And then the Doctor, with his victim by his side, unrolled 
his topographical plan, and began : — 

“ The plan of the actually existing buildings, — ^just put your 
hand on the paper, my dear, to hold it open, so that they may 
all see it ; ” — Margaret admirably prompt to extract from 
unfavourable circumstances all the little good they might be 
capable of yielding, laid a beautifully white and slender hand, 
with long slender fingers, flat on the paper, taking off her 
glove for the purpose, as if the service demanded of her 
could not have been performed otherwise ; and the Doctor 
proceeded : — 

‘‘ The plan of the modern part of the actually existing’ build- 
ings has been traced here in black, while that of those por- 
tions of the ancient monastery which have perished, has, as 
far as it has been possible to discover the position^ of them, 
been laid down in red lines. The part of the plan coloured 
green, represents those portions of the actually existing house 
which were part of the original building’. It will be at once 
perceived, therefore, that the entire wing, including the 
drawing-room in which we are at this moment assembled, is 
of modern construction ; — comparatively modern that is to 
say, dating probably from the early part of the seventeenth 
century.” 

“ I am sure you will forgive me, my good Doctor, for inter- 
rupting you,” said Mr. Falconer, ‘‘but it is impossible to hear 
that statement laid down in so unqualifled a manner, without 
pointing out that there are grave doubts ” 


LINDISFAHN CHASE. 


145 


Thank you, Falconer,’’ cried the Doctor, turning* on him 
with the aspect of a boar brought to bay. I am perfectly 
aware of all that you would say. I said 'probably — probably 
from the beginning of the seventeenth century. We shall go 
more accurately into the examination of that question, when 
we shall have brought our investigations down to that time. 
You will become aware of the advantage of chronological 
treatment in matters of this kind, when you have applied your 
distinguished erudition to more of them. Allow me to pro- 
ceed ? ” 

Mr. Falconer was a man of bland manners, and particularly 
prided himself on suavity of demeanour a toute epreuve. But 
those of the party who knew him well, were made aware by a 
little vibratory motion of his pigtail, that he was restraining 
himself from giving way to his indignation with difficulty. He 
succeeded, however, so far as to permit no outward demonstra- 
tion of the tempest that was raging within him, to appear, 
beyond a satirical smile, as, having first soothed his nervous 
system with a pinch of snuff, he said : 

“ I bide my time then. Doctor ! ” 

“I was about to point out to you,” resumed the Doctor, 
“that only the kitchens, the pantry, the small room adjoining 
the kitchen on the south side, used I believe by the late 
owners as the housekeeper’s room, and possibly still appropri- 
ated to the same purpose ” The Doctor paused, and di- 

rected an inquiring glance at Miss Merriton, thereby causing 
his hearers to do the same, to the exceeding annoyance and 
discomfiture of that little lady, who had been surreptitiously 
engaged in the background in condoling in whispered accents 
with Lady Sempronia, on some of that lady’s trials. She felt 
like a schoolboy, who had been suddenly “set on” at the 
moment, when having been absorbed in the pages of a novel 
dexterously hidden beneath his Virgil, he has not the remotest 
idea of “the place.” Lady Sempronia would have prompted 
her, but was no better informed of the matter in hand than 
herself. 

“The room next the kitchen,” said Lady Farnleigh ; “is 
it still the housekeeper’s room ? ” 

“ Yes, that is the housekeeper’s room. Is she wanted ? ” 
asked poor Miss Merriton, sadly fluttered. 

“ Not yet. Not at present, thanks,” resumed the Doctor. — 
“The housekeeper’s room. — I was saying that the kitchens, 
the pantry, the housekeeper’s room, and the north-west and 
10 


146 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


north-east walls of the present dining-room, or part of them at 
least, are the only portions of the present house which belong 
to the ancient monastery.” 

■ But at that point of his discourse poena pede claudo overtook 
the Doctor. The bland but inly raging old banker had bided 
his time, as he said, and found it ! 

‘‘ Excuse me, Doctor,” he cried, pushing forward to the front 
of the little group to lay his finger on the plan ; “ excuse me if 
I say, that I feel sure the time will come, when your persevering 
studies will convince you of the danger of laxity of statement 
in topographical details. The only parts of the present house 
included in the old monastery ! What ! Is there not the 
wash-house ? One of the best characterized remnants in the 
place 1 ” 

“How, my dear Falconer, I do hope that you will permit me 
to proceed with my statement of the facts. I am well aware 
of course that the foundations of the wall of the present wash- 
house ” 

“You know. Dr. Lindisfarn, how deep a respect I entertain 
for the profundity of your erudition and the accuracy of your 
research ; but I must be permitted to say, that anyone who 
fails to see at a glance the contemporaneousness of the present 
wall with the foundations on which they stand, must be ignor- 
ant of the very A B 0 of archaeology.” 

“ I know no man for whose opinion I should have a greater 
deference on a matter of this kind, than yours, Mr. Falconer. 
But really the grossness of the error into which you have 
fallen upon the present occasion, is a melancholy warning of 
the consequences of rash and too hasty induction.” 

“ Rash induction, my dear Doctor ! I find in Pringle’s 
‘ Survey of the Suppressed Religious Houses of the Hundreds 
of Perribash and Warlingcombe,’ a plan, which gives .” 

“ Indications of walls, of which the ancient foundations still 
remain ! I daresay you do. I flatter myself I am acquainted 
with Pringle’s work. But Battledore, in his ‘ Peregrinations 
and Per lustrations of the Valley of the Sill ’ — a somewhat rare 
work, which you probably have never seen. Falconer, for a 
small edition only was privately printed, but I shall have much 
pleasure in showing you a copy — Battledore clearly shows that 
the building which had existed on those foundations, was in 
ruin in his time.” 

Margaret, who all this time had been dutifully holding open 
her uncle’s plan with her fair hand outspread upon it in the 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


147 


manner which has been described, thinking when the dispute 
between the rival antiquaries had reached that point, either 
that her services were for the moment no longer needed, or 
that a sufficient time had been allowed for all present to admire 
the beauty of her hand, withdrew it from the paper, which 
immediately rolled itself up against the fingers of the Doctor, 
who had been holding it on the other side. Margaret, who 
was already gently withdrawing herself from the prominent 
position she had been made to occupy at her uncle’s side, feared 
that the coiling up of the paper would draw his attention to 
her desertion. But she need not have alarmed herself. He 
was far too intent on the battle which had begun to rage, to 
think about any such small matters. Feeling the plan roll 
itself up into a baton, he grasped it, as he turned upon his 
^adversary, who was unprovided with any such weapon. 

“Yery cleverly done,” whispered Frederick in her ear, as 
drawing back from the place she had held, she found herself 
again by his side. “And now, while my father is telling him 
how Shuttlecock points out that Battledore knew nothing at 
all about it, we may escape.” 

“ Have you any idea what it is all about ? ” asked Margaret 
confidentially. 

“ Not the least in the world ! But I hope the fight will 
last all the remainder of the afternoon. It won’t hurt them ; 
and it will be a great blessing to us. Don’t you think we 
might steal out upon the lawn through this open window ? 
There is a beautiful greenhouse ; let me show it to you, 
while the war is still raging over the foundations of the wash- 
house.” 

“ The phrase ‘ ruins,’ my dear Doctor,” said the old banker, 
with a smile of infinite superiority, “ is a very vague one. In 
this case it was, in all probability, used by the writer whom 
you cite, and who is perfectly well known to me — though I 
have not much opinion of the reliability of his work — to express 
the condition of the roof.” Here the old gentleman took a 
pinch of snuff, and looked round on the bystanders with an air 
which seemed to call their attention to the fact of his having 
utterly demolished his opponent. “But with regard to the 
walls,” he continued, “ I think — I do think, that the evidence 
of your own senses, my dear Doctor, would be sufficient to 
convince you that they are of the same date as the foundations 
on which they rest. If our kind hosts will permit us to in-> 

stitute an examination on the spot ? ” 

10—2 


148 


LINDISFARN CHAS2. 


“ Oh, by all means,” said Mr. Merriton; ^Hhe entire house 
is at your disposition. If you will step this way ” 

And the combatants accordingly followed him to the back 
part of the house, which stood very close to the cliff which has 
been described, and occupied the site of the refectory and ad- 
joining buildings — ^buttery hatches, and so forth — of the old 
monastery. But it may be feared that when they reached the 
battle-ground itself, a great portion of the interest of the fight 
was lost. Were there ever knights who would not have taken 
their lances from their rests, and ceased from poking each 
other, if all the spectators had retired from the lists ? And 
unhappily not a single soul of those assembled in the drawing- 
room at the Friary cared sufficiently to know when the wash- 
house was built, to follow the combatants. There was still 
Mr. Merriton for umpire ; and the dispute had therefore to be 
carried on. But it is permissible to suppose, that if it had not 
been for his presence the fight would have languished. 

As it was, the remaining members of the party, who were 
left in the drawing-room — Lady Farnleigh, Miss Merriton, 
Lady Sempronia, Kate, Mr. Mat and Captain Ellingham — were 
left to their own devices by the — it is to be feared, not un- 
welcome — diversion. 

“We must not regret. Miss Merriton,” said Lady Farnleigh, 
“ that the great question of the antiquity of your 'wash-house, 
which seems so doubtful, should be finally set at rest, as it no 
dou])t will now be ; although we are deprived, in consequence 
of the difficulty, of the benefit of the Doctor’s guidance. I 
propose that we put the time to profit by investigating as best 
we may by the light of nature, that charming fragment of the 
old cloister that forms the northern boundary of your lovely 
flower-garden.” 

“ That is the only bit of the antiquities of the Friary that I 
care about,” said Mr. Mat ; “ and I do think that flower-garden 
is the prettiest spot in all Sillshire.” 

“ Don’t you think we may venture. Miss Merriton, to conduct 
our own researches in the flower-garden, without inquiring 
what Pringle and Battledore have written upon the subject? ” 
said Lady Farnleigh. 

“If Lady Sempronia feels equal to strolling so far ?” 

said Miss Merriton, turning to that plaintive lady, by whose 
side she was sitting on a sofa, listening with admirable patience 
and sympathy to the tale of her various trials. 

“I am afraid,” said Lady Sempronia, whose mind was full of 


imDlSFAilN CHAStj/ 


149 


the impending danger that the Doctor might be stimulated 
into composing a monograph on the date of the Friary wash- 
house, “I am afraid that I must not venture out in the sun. 
It is very powerful at this hour. But pray do not let me 
detain you, Miss Merriton.” 

“But perhaps Lady Farnleigh, who is doubtless far more 
competent to act as guide than I am, will excuse me. If she 
would kindly undertake the office of cicerone, I should prefer 
remaining indoors myself,” said Miss Merriton. 

“ Oh ! I am thoroughly competent, I assure you,” rejoined 
Lady Farnleigh. “ If I have only your permission, I undertake 
to do the honours of the gardens on ne pent mieuxJ^ 

So Lady Farnleigh, Kate, Mr. Mat and Captain Ellingham, 
walked out into the garden by the same window through which 
Margaret and Frederick Falconer had passed. The latter had, 
however, gone into the conservatory, which occupied the space 
of some forty feet between the house and the fragment of the 
ancient cloister, to which Lady Farnleigh had alluded. 

The flower-garden in question was worth a visit ; and none 
the less so that the place was well known to all the partie 
carree who now entered it, except Captain Ellingham. It is 
indeed as lovely a spot as the imagination can well conceive. 
Completely shut in on the Silverton side by the lofty jutting 
limestone cliff, close round the base of which the water ran in 
a deeper and swifter stream than in any other part of its 
course, it was enclosed on the side opposite to the front of the 
house by the river, the opposite bank of which was fringed 
with a luxuriant plantation of rhododendrons, all the way, from 
the private bridge leading to the village, to the spot where it 
disappeared round the cliff. Over the top of this flourishing 
plantation, the spire of Weston Church was visible, and behind 
it the higher and more distant parts of the broken open ground, 
with its patches of broom, which intervened between the valley 
of the Sill and the woods belonging to the Chase, and behind 
them again an horizon formed by the lofty summit of Lindisfarn 
brow. 

On the opposite side to the river, the flower-garden was shut 
in by the house, by the conservatory, one end of which abutted 
on it, and by the old fragment of cloister, consisting of three 
arches, and a smaller portion of the back wall of the cloister, 
which had, however, been restored and completed by masonry 
of recent construction, and on which the other end of the con- 
servatory rested. The three isolated arches of crumbling grey 


150 


LINDISFAM CHASE. 


stone, standing thus on the exquisitely kept sward of the 
lawn, and serving as a support for a variety of flowering creep- 
ers, were the pride and beauty of the garden. They stood at 
right angles, as will be understood, if I have succeeded in 
rendering the above account of the locality intelligible, to that 
face of the cliff, which shut in the garden ; and which, itself 
richly clothed with a wilder and more exuberant growth of 
coarser creeping plants, was so beautiful an object as to make 
it questionable whether man’s handiwork or nature’s, had con- 
tributed most to the ornament of- the little paradise encircled 
by them both. The remaining side of the enclosed space — 
that looking towards the. upper valley of the Sill and the 
pasture ground on its banks, which was once the home farm 
of the monastery, and now the park attached to the modern 
residence — was only partially shut in by plantations, of horse- 
chestnut and birch chiefly, so as to leave peeps of the distant 
view in this direction. 

“I do think Mr. Mat is right,” said Kate, as they all four 
stood on the lawn in front of the three old arches, which were 
probably indebted for their preservation, so many years after 
the destruction of their fellows, to the support and protection 
derived from the cliff against which the last of them rested. 

do think this is the prettiest spot altogether that I ever 
saw.” 

“It really is a most perfect thing in its way,” said Captain 
Ellingham, who, to tell the truth, though nobody but Lady 
Earnleigh had observed it, had been in not the best of all pos- 
sible humours since they had arrived at the Friary ; for instead 
of attending to the Doctor’s exordium as he ought to have 
done, he had been watching Margaret — that “ most beautiful 
creature he had ever seen in his life ” — and all her ways and 
works, and he did not like what he had seen. He was not 
pleased with the incident arising from the tardiness of their 
arrival. Hot that he in the least blamed Margaret for the 
delay of the half-hour employed in the trying-on of three 
dresses, for he agreed with Falconer in thinking, though he 
had not said it, that the result produced was well worth the 
time employed to realize it. But he had not been pleased with 
her allowing the blame to be cast on her sister, and still less 
with a certain expression of face which he had noted when Mr. 
Mat had so brutally betrayed her secret. Then again, though 
he had much admired the exquisite little hand, so skilfully 
laid out (literally) for admiration on the Doctor’s topographical 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


151 


plan, lie had most ungratefully felt annoyed at her for the 
manner of the exhibition of it. And it cannot perhaps be said 
that he was altogether unreasonable in withholding his entire 
approbation in either case. But he was far more displeased at 
certain other things that had fallen within the scope of his 
observation, with which he really had no right to find fault. 
He had noted all the by-play and whispering with Falconer, 
and judged it from a stand point of moral criticism, which his 
judgment would hardly have placed itself on, if he had been 
himself the culprit in Falconer’s place. He had marked also her 
escape out of the window, followed by him ; and it sufiiced to 
bring his indignation and his ill-humour to its climax. And 
although the sins she had been guilty of would only have con- 
firmed him in the opinion, that she certainly was one of the 
sweetest creatures on earth, if he instead of another had been 
the accomplice of them, as it was, he began to ask himself 
whether Lady Farnleigh had not been right, when she called 
him a goose in the carriage as they were returning from the 
Chase. 

The Honourable Captain Ellingham, though doubtless, as 
Fred Falconer had said, a very meritorious officer, was, it is 
very clear, a quite exceptionably unreasonable man, when the 
question was one, not of haulyards and marling-spikes, but of 
pretty girls. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ‘‘nosey stone. 

Captain Ellingham’s ill-temper was beginning to give way 
before the influences of the charming scene around him, and 
the thoroughly good-tempered, joyous, and open-hearted enjoy- 
ment of it by his companions ; and he was gradually coming 
round more and more to the opinion that Lady Farnleigh had 
expressed as to the merits of the Lindisfarn lasses, and as to 


152 


LTNDTSFARN CHASE. 


his appreciation of them, when a circumstance occurred, which, 
though it suddenly changed the immediate current of all his 
thoughts, yet eventually operated to complete Captain Elling- 
ham’s conversion to his old friend’s opinion. 

The face of Weston rock, as the cliff, which has been so fre- 
quently mentioned, was called by the educated classes — though 
the country people generally nicknamed it the “ Nosey stone,” 
from the manner in which it stood out from the hill-side behind 
it — the face of Weston rock which looks towards Silverton, is, 
though very steep, not altogether precipitous. The most pro- 
minent part of it — the ridge of the nose, as it were — which is 
washed at its base by the river, is for more than half of the 
height from the water a naked and absolutely precipitous rock. 
The upper portion of this side of the cliff above this naked 
wall of rock, is very little less steep ; but it is covered with a 
growth of creeping plants, which do not, however, sufficiently 
lessen its precipitous character to render it possible for any 
human foot to traverse it. On the other face of the cliff, that 
which overhangs and forms the boundary of the Friary 
gardens, the lower portion of the height is nearly as steep as 
that which overhangs the river ; but it is not, like that, utterly 
devoid of inequalities on the surface and ledges, which in some 
degree break the face of it. The upper portion on this side is 
not so entirely precipitous ; it is covered not only with a pro- 
fusion of creeping plants, the long trailing branches of which 
hang down over the lower part, but over a considerable portion 
of its surface with patches and tufts of rank, coarse grass and 
herbage. So that it is possible on that side to descend from 
the top by the aid of the partial foothold, and the vigorous 
vegetation of the creepers. Nevertheless, considering that 
anyone attempting such a feat, has some seventy or eighty feet 
of utterly unclimbable precipice beneath him, the edge of which 
he is approaching as he descends, and bearing in mind that 
the crumbling of a tuft of couch-grass, or the breaking of a 
twig, may accelerate his approach to its edge in such sort as 
to hurry him over it, the descent of the Nosey stone, even on 
this its least terrible side, is an undertaking in which one would 
not wish unnecessarily to engage. 

The little party standing on the lawn in front of the old 
cloister arches, and, consequently, within a few feet of that face 
of the cliff which has been .last mentioned, were speaking, as 
everybody always does speak in such cases, of the exceeding 
k^owingness exhibited by the monks in the choice of their situ- 


LIKDISFARN CHASE. 


153 


ations — ^liow sure they always were to select the choice bits of 
all the country-side for their homesteads, and how perfectly 
well they understood all the points that go toward making 
any spot specially eligible for a habitation — when suddenly 
they were startled by a rustle, a rush among the brushwood 
on the face of the cliff above their heads, and in the next 
moment the fall of a heavy substance with a dead sounding 
thud on the turf of the lawn at their feet. It was a young 
lamb ; and it lay on its side, giving only one or two convulsive 
movements with its hind legs — for the fall had killed it. 

“ Poor little thing ; said Kate, running forward, and stoop- 
ing over it to see if it was indeed dead ; “it must have strayed 
from the mother in the field above. I think it is dead ; look, 
Mr. Mat, see if the fall has quite killed it.” 

“ Killed it, sure enough,” said Mr. Mat ; “ lambs don’t fall 
as cats do ! ” 

“It is well for it, poor little beast, that it is killed,” said 
Captain Ellingham, “ for of course its bones must be broken.” 

Just then Margaret and Falconer emerged from the con- 
servatory, were they also had heard and been startled by the 
noise of the fall. They came forward towards the spot where 
the others were gathered round the body of the unlucky little 
animal, with an eagerness of inquiry as to what the matter 
was, and what had happened, which had somewhat the appear- 
ance of being in a certain measure prompted by a feeling of 
the desirability of diverting the attention of the party away 
from their simultaneous re-appearance, after their period of 
retirement. 

“ Good gracious ! ” cried Margaret, when the nature of the 
accident had been explained to her, “ what a mercy it is the 
creature did not tumble on any of our heads ! It might have 
killed us on the spot ! ” 

But as Margaret uttered the words, moralising the event 
after her own fashion. Captain Ellingham suddenly cried, 
“ Hush ! ” lifting his finger as he spoke ; “ Hush ! I thought I 

heard a voice up there! Yes ! there it is again A sob, as 

of a child crying. Is there any possibility that a child should 
be on the face of the cliff ? ” 

“Hardly,” said Mr. Mat ; “more likely the voice you heard 
was from the top. Very likely some little shepherd or shep- 
herdess, who has discovered the misfortune that has betided 
one of the flock.” 

“ God grant the child, if it be one, may not come too close 


154 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


to the edge of the cliff ! ” said Lady Farnleigh. It is a danger- 
ous place. And it strikes me, that unless the voice were quite 
at the very edge of the precipice, it could not be heard here.’^ 

“ So I should say, too,’^ replied Ellingham. “ And yet I can 
hear it now, evidently the voice of a child crying. Hist ! Do 
you not hear it ? 

“ There! Oh, yes 1 To be sure I do. It is a child crying.’^ 

“ Yes ! I can hear it too, now, very plainly. I think it 
must have come nearer,” said Lady Farnleigh. 

“ What can we do to find out where it is ? ” cried Kate, 
turning to Captain Ellingham, who was still bending his ear 
to catch the sounds, that were at one moment more, and at 
another less distinctly audible. 

“Do the ladies and gentlemen of Sillshire always go into 
committee instantly on the spot every time a little gamin cries, 
to investigate the cause of the phenomenon ? ” said Margaret, 
tittering. 

“Yes they du ! ” cried Mr. Mat, turning on her fiercely, and 
speaking in his broadest Doric ; “ Yes, they du. Miss Margy, 
when Tis at the voot of the Nosey stoan they hear it ! Why, 
the poor child may be zearching for the lamb to the top of the 
cliff, and come to vail over in the zame manner, he might 1 ” 

“ I believe,” said Captain Ellingham, who had been atten- 
tively listening, “that the. voice must be on the face of the 
cliff ; I do not think we could hear it, as we do, if it was from 
anybody on the top. The sound would be too much impeded 
by the intervening mass of the hill, which prevents a person 
on the top from being visible.” 

And as he spoke. Captain Ellingham drew back from the face 
of the cliff towards the bank of the river, in order to be able 
to scan the whole surface of it with his eye. If the cliff had 
been naked, it would have been of course easy to do this in 
an instant. But the overgrowth of creepers, and brambles, 
and brushwood, was in some parts quite abundant enough to 
hide a child or even a man among it. But after carefully 
and earnestly gazing for a minute or two, Captain Ellingham 
cried out : 

“ Yes I Yes 1 I think I see him, or her, whichever it is I ” 

“ Where, where ? ” cried Kate, running out from under the 
cliff to the place where Ellingham was standing, still intently 
examining the face of the rock. 

“ There ; a couple of fathom or so above the line where the 
vegetation ends and the naked rock begins. Do you see a large 


LINDISFAR^T CEASE. 


155 


patch of yellow flowers ? Lift your eyes in a perpendicular 
line from the spot where the conservatory joins the old arches 
of the cloister, till you come to a noticeable clump of yellow 
flowers... ...” 

“ Yes, oh yes ! ” cried Kate, doing as she was bid ; “ I have 
them ! ” 

“ Well ! just above, and a little to the right of that clump 
of flowers, I saw the bushes move, and I am almost sure that 
I caught a glimpse of a dress ! ” 

“ But, good Heaven ! ” cried Kate, turning pale, “ if there is 
a child, or even a man, there, how are they to get away ? They 
must be in fearful danger ! ” 

“It is a child’s voice and I think a girl’s,” said Elling- 

ham. 

“ Good Heaven ! What is to be done ? ” asked Lady 
Farnleigh, looking in a scared manner from one to the other 
of the two gentlemen ; — the two ; for though there were three 
present on the lawn since Falconer had come out of the con- 
servatory with Margaret, her eyes seemed to confine her appeal 
to Mr. Mat and Captain Ellingham. 

“ ’Tis a bad place to get tu,” said Mr. Mat. “ She, ev it is 
a girl, might get tu the top the zame way she got down ; 
though perhaps she might vind it difficult to du so. But the 
worst is, that mayhap she don’t know — pretty zure indeed she 
don’t know — that the naked rock is ten or a dozen veet below 
her. And ev she goes on pushing and moving among the 
bushes, -she may vail any minute. Ev she would remain quite 
still till we could get to her with ladders and tackle, we might 
take her off the cliff safe enough.” 

“ But how could she ever have got there, Mr. Mat ? ” asked 
Kate, in much distress ; “ do you think she fell over the edge 
of the cliff? ” 

“ Ho ! Depend upon it she clambered down after the lamb, 
that we saw vail. It is not so very difficult to get down by 
help of the bushes, and climb up again, ev you know what you 
are about, and what sort of place it is. I’ve been all over the 
vace of the cliff after birdsnests and blackberries, when I was 
a boy, time and again. She is uncommonly near the top of 
the naked rock though ! And if she comes down any lower, 
God help her!” 

“Shall I try to hail her? We could make her hear well 
enough ; but it is a question whether we may not frighten her.” 

“Had you not better send a servant to the village, and 


156 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tell the people to go and look after the child ? said Mar- 
garet. 

“ Tell ye what/’ said Mr. Mat,” better let me try to speak to 
her. She’ll understand our Zillshire speach better. I should 
be less likely to frighten her than you. If we can only make 
her keep herself quite quiet till we can come tu her, it will be 
all right enough.” 

“ There ! there ! now I see her plain enough,” cried Captain 
IJllingham ; “ it is a little girl sure enough ! I see her red 
dress.” 

“ If she don’t bide still, it is all up with her ! She moved 
a couple of voot nearer the top of the bare rock then ! ” 

“ Good Heaven ! ” cried Lady Farnleigh ; “ call to her, Mr. 
Mat ! call to her at all hazards ! tell her not to move hand or 
foot for her life ! I see the poor little thing plain enough ; Do 
you not see, Kate ” 

And she turned as she spoke, to where Kate had been 
standing on the lawn; but Kate was no longer there. They 
had all been looking up eagerly to the face of the cliff, and 
neither Ellingham nor Mr. Mat had seen her go. 

“ Kate is gone into the house,” said Margaret ; “ she ran off 
without saying a word. Ko doubt she has gone to tell the 
servants.” 

Mr. Mat, putting his hands to his mouth so as to make 
them serve, as far as might be, the purpose of a speaking 
trumpet, hallooed to the child, whom they could all now see 
perfectly well, to remain quite still ; to take the best hold she 
could on the biggest bushes, near her, and hold on without 
attempting to budge till help could reach her. 

But while he was calling to her — whether or not it may 
hawe been that she was startled by the voice from underneath 
fier — she made another movement, which brought her two or 
three feet nearer to the limit of the bushes, and to the com- 
mencement of the bare rock, — and certain destruction. 

Lady Farnleigh covered her eyes with her hand, and uttered 
a shuddering cry. 

“By Heaven ! she will be killed before our eyes ! ” cried Mr. 
Mat. “ You run. Falconer ! run for your life to the top of 
the cliff, by the path on the other side — ^you know, the path 
from Weston watermeads up to Shapton farm; — and get 
down to the child by the bushes. You’ll be faster than me ; 
and I’ll be trying to get at her from below. Bun for dear life, 
lad ! ” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


157 


But as he spoke, and while Lady Farnleigh was wringing 
her hands in distress, Miss Margaret was so overcome by her 
feelings, that she suddenly threw herself backwards into Frede- 
rick Falconer’s arms, and went off incontinently into violent 
hysterics. 

“It is impossible that I can leave Miss Lindisfarn in this 
state,” replied he, to Mr. Mat’s appeal ; “ impossible, or I would 
go at once.” 

“ Oh ! don’t leave me ! for pity’s sake don’t leave me ! ” 
shrieked the young lady, opening her fine eyes for a moment — 
just long enough to shoot up into the face which was hanging 
over her, a glance which was not altogether hysterical in its 
expression — according, at least, to the strictly medical view of 
such matters. 

“ Put the lass down with her back on the tarf ! ” said Mr. 
Mat, in extreme disgust ; “put the lass down ! what hurt can 
she take ? And see if you can help to save this poor child’s 
life!” 

“ Oh ! don’t leave me ! don’t leave me ! ” sobbed Miss Marga- 
ret. 

“Not for all the world,” replied Freddy, in an intensely ex- 
pressive whisper, with eye expression to match. “ It is impos- 
sible for me to leave.her,” he said aloud, in answer to Mr. Mat; 
“ don’t you see that it is ? ” 

Captain Ellingham had in the meantime contrived to clamber 
to the top of the half-ruinous arches, and was seeing whether 
it was possible for active limbs and a sure eye to scale the face 
of the cliff by that help. 

“ It is out of the question,” cried Mr. Mat, “ I tell you it is 
impossible 1 Wait while I run into the house to see what 
ladders they have.” 

“ And ropes,” returned Ellingham. “ Above all, a good coil 
of rope.” 

“ Where’s Kate ? ” cried Mr. Mat, as he turned to run into 
the house. 

“I did not see her leave the lawn; I suppose she went 
into the house,” returned Lady Farnleigh. “No doubt she 
went to get assistance. Since that gentleman does not 
choose to risk his precious limbs to save a poor girl’s life,” 
continued she, looking with a curling lip to the spot where 
Falconer was hanging over the reclining form of Miss Mar- 
garet, “you had better get some one of the servants to 
hasten to the top of the cliff and try to get down to her. 


158 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Ellingham will be the man to climb it from below, if any 
human being can.” 

“Do you continue to encourage her to hold on for life, 
but to make no attempt to move, Lady Farnleigh; I will 
run and see what tackle can be got. You can make hr 
hear you.” 

And, so saying, he and Mr. Mat hurried off together into the 
house. 

In a very few minutes, all the others of the party had run 
out from the house, and were assembled on the lawn. As soon 
as ever Mr. Merriton understood the nature of the case, and 
the desirability that someone should, if possible, get to the top 
of the cliff, and attempt to descend thence to where the child 
was, he started off to make his way to the place. 

“ Take the gardener with you, Arthur, to show you the patl 
up the cliff, and the spot at the top from which you must try 
the descent,” said little Miss Merriton, with quiet presence of 
mind. “And make him run his best. You can run well, 
Arthur.” 

And then quietly stepping into the house, she called all the 
menservants and maids, and set them to work to drag out 
feather beds and mattresses, and spread them at the foot of 
the cliff. 

“ In case the poor little thing should fall, it might be the 
means of saving her,” she said to Lady Farnleigh. “ I fear 
she would not fall sufficiently clear of the rocks to escape fatal 
injury ; but it is a chance the more in her favour.” 

While this was being done. Captain Ellingham and Mr. Mat 
were busily engaged in splicing together two long ladders, 
which had been brought out on to the lawn. 

“ Can you judge the height with your eye. Captain ? ” said 
Mr. Mat ; “ do you think we have length of ladder enough ? ” 

“It is very difficult to say. I don’t know. We must try 
it. If I can only get to the lowest bushes. I’ll answer for the 
rest.” 

“ How can you possibly take the child off the cliff, when it 
will be as much as ever you can do to hold your own footing 
on it ? ” urged Mr. Mat. 

“ Only let me get at her ; and I’ll answer for the rest. I’ll 
manage it, either upwards or back by the ladders. Now for it, 
let’s try the length ! ” 

They raised the two ladders, tied together, with some diffi- 
culty, only to find that they were some ten or twelve feet too 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


159 


short for the purpose. The lowest of the bushes grew at least 
that distance above the topmost rung of the ladder ; and the 
child was now about half as much, or perhaps rather more 
than half as much, as high again above the commencement of 
the growth of plants. 

“ I’ll tell you what it is,” said Ellingham ; there is but 
one thing for it. We must get the ladders up and stand them 
on the top of the old cloister wall ! ” 

“ I doubt it,” said Mr. Mat ; “ I doubt our raising the ladder 
there ; and if you do succeed in getting it on end, it will be no 
joke attempting to go up it.” 

“ Not a bit of it, only let us get the ladders up ! I’ll go 
up them safe enough ! I’m good at a balance,” returned 
Ellingham. 

“ Well, we can but try,” said Mr. Mat. So, aided by the 
servants, the two gentlemen essayed, and by dint of great ex- 
ertion, succeeded in raising the ladders against the cliff from 
the top of the crumbling old wall. Mr. Mat placed himself on 
the arch at the foot of the ladder, in order to hold and steady 
it to the utmost of his power and strength. But the task of 
ascending the two ladders, hastily lashed together, raised 
against an uneven surface of bare rock, and standing on the 
top of a rotten and ' crumbling old wall, was not an agreeable 
one ; and all the, other individuals of the party assembled on 
the lawn, looked on with breathless anxiety while Ellingham 
was about to attempt it. 

All of them were there, with the exception of Frederick 
Falconer and Miss Margaret. For after Fred had declared, in 
I reply to the appeal made to him for assistance, that he could 
j not leave Margaret, and had pledged himself to that young 
i lady herself not to “ desert her,” finding it unpleasant under 
1 the circumstances to remain under the observation of the people 
! congregated on the lawn, specially of Lady Farnleigh and 
: Mr. Mat, he had half carried, half led, the drooping and still 
I hysterical girl into the drawing-room, and was there adminis- 
I tering such bodily and mental consolation and comfort as her 
I case required. Ellingham was on the wall at the foot of the 
I ladder, adjusting a coil of rope around his shoulders and neck, 
in such a manner as to interfere as little as possible with his 
freedom of action, and was on the point of starting on his 
perilous enterprise, when the attention of those on the lawn 
was drawn to a movement among the bushes and brambles at 
. the top of the cliff' just above the spot where the child was 


160 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


still clinging for dear life to the shmbs and crumbling soil, 
only a few feet above the commencement of the wholly naked 
part of the cliff. In the next minute it was evident to all of 
them that it was Kate Lindisfarn, who was about to attempt 
descending the cliff to the child by the same path by which the 
latter had reached her present position of danger; who was 
attempting it rather ; for without any hesitation or pause, she 
began descending among the bushes. 

Yes ! it was Kate sure enough ! Her light blue silk dress 
was distinguishable enough, and was unmistakable. 

‘‘Ko, no ! Back, go back ! ” screamed Lady Farnleigh, with 
the utmost power of her voice, and striving to enforce her 
words by waving signals with her hands. But Kate paid no 
attention to the warning, if she heard or observed it. 

“ Oh God ! she will be killed, she will be killed ! ’’ screamed 
Lady Farnleigh, in an agony of distress. 

“ Let her try it, God bless her ! ” cried Mr. Mat, from the 
cloister wall, with much emotion ; “ Kate has a sure foot and 
a steady eye. She is Sillshire, Kate is ! ” 

“Wait till I can join you. Miss Lindisfarn! Wait a 
moment ! ” shouted Captain Ellingham, as loud as he could. 
“Tell her,” he added to those below, “for God’s sake to 
wait a minute till I can get to her ! ” and he hastened up the 
ladder. 

Kate, however, either did ngt hear or did not pay any 
attention to any of the entreaties or warnings or advice 
screamed out to her, but continued her way down the cliff in a 
direct line to the spot where the little girl was clinging. 

It thus became a sort of race which would reach the child 
first; and as Ellingham at the top of the ladder, and Kate 
descending the cliff, neared one another, they came within easy 
speaking distance of each other and of the object of their ex- 
ertions. 

The last step from the ladder to the face of the cliff was an 
exceedingly difficult one to make — was, indeed, more of the 
nature of a jump from the ladder into a bush, with the neces- 
sity of instantly on reaching it taking means with both hands 
and feet for retaining a position on the face of the cliff. Kone 
but a man of tried nerve, and sure of himself and of the per- 
fection of the service he might expect at need from all his 
limbs, would have dreamed of attempting it. By none whatso- 
ever could it be done without extreme danger. Ke^^ 
reached the spot where the child was, and had alreacj I 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


161 


her arm with one hand while she held on to a bush above her 
with the other, before Ellingham had made this desperate 
jump ; and she called to him not to attempt it. 

“ Don’t risk it, Captain Ellingham, there is no need ! I can 
get back with her to the top very well. It is all easy, after 
this first bit is passed. Go down the ladder, for Heaven’s 
sake ! and send somebody round to meet me at the top of the 
cliff.” 

“ No, no ! I can jump it ! I can’t let you risk clambering 
to the top without help. It is one thing to make your own 
way, and quite another to drag another person with you. Here 
goes! ” • 

“ Oh, don’t do it ! ” shrieked Kate, hiding her eyes with her 
hand. But in the next instant the spring had been made, and 
he was standing clinging to the bushes in comparative safety 
by her side. A shout from those on the lawn below, and a 
special hurrah from Mr. Mat, showed the interest with which 
Ellingham’s progress had been watched. His success, more- 
over, besides securing his own safety, was a tolerably sufficient 
guarantee for that of Kate, and the child whose danger had 
caused so much trouble and distress. For it was pretty clear 
that the man who had accomplished the feat of activity that 
they had just witnessed, would not fail in the far easier task 
of assisting his two charges to the summit in safety. 

And then, with very few words between them, save such as 
were needed for directing them to place a foot here, and grasp 
a twig there, and one or two little attempts on Kate’s part at 
protesting against Ellingham’s determination to place himself, 
as they struggled upwards, between them and the precipice, 
so that he might have a chance of repairing the mishap of a 
slip of the foot, or the failure of a hand-grasp, the three of 
them reached the top in safety. 

Then, indeed, there were words to be said. There was the 
frightened child to be interrogated in the first place. It 
appeared that the case was exactly as Mr. Mat had guessed it. 
The pet lamb had struggled over the brow, gradually finding 
its way down the steep among the herbage ; and the child had 
wandered after it, almost equally unconscious of the danger 
she was approaching, till the increasing steepness of the slope, 
and the crumbling of the soil under her feet, and the impossi- 
bility of retracing her steps, revealed it to her. 

A few minutes after they had reached the top, Mr. Merriton, 
breathless, and the gardener, came up. The former threw 
11 


162 


LINDISFAE^f CHASE. 


himself down on the ground as soon as he saw them — it was 
very evident that he had done his utmost to reach the spot in 
time. 

“Oh, Miss Lindisfarn! What a relief it is to see you in 
safety ! Captain Ellingham, I congratulate you, but I cannot 
help envying you your good fortune ! ” he panted out. 

And then they returned at their leisure to the Friary, taking 
the little girl with them as their prize and proof of their 
prowess. 

And Kate admitted, in going down the steep path on the 
Silverton side of the cliff to the water-meadows, that an arm 
would be acceptable to herf and the path was difficult enough 
to make her sensible that she had a very firm one supporting 
her, as they returned to the friends who were so anxiously 
awaiting them. 

It is not necessary to set forth in detail, how during the 
rest of the afternoon, the adventure of the Cliff pushed the pro- 
jected antiquarian investigations aside, somewhat to the disgust 
of the two seniors of the party — how Kate and Captain 
Ellingham were (to speak in Twelfth-night phraseology) King 
and Queen of the evening — or how Margaret and Fred Falconer 
discreetly kept themselves as much as possible in the back- 
ground, sufficiently consoled for that position by the fact of 
occupying it together. 

It will be enough to state, that though Mr. Frederick was 
exceedingly well pleased to have made such progress, and so 
coupled himself with the Lindisfarn co-heiress, as to make him 
feel tolerably sure in his enterprise, and though he was genu- 
inely and honestly much attracted by the beauty which, during 
the little comedy of the afternoon, Margaret had submitted to 
his attention under a variety of interesting circumstances and 
combinations, — nevertheless he was very sensible of the cost at 
which he had bought this success as regarded the heiress ; 
and he was not pleased with her for having been the cause of 
his making but a sorry figure before the rest of the assembled 
party. 

Might not he also, just as easily as Merriton, have run to 
the top of the cliff, and played a creditable part, without 
troubling himself with the danger of descending it? 

As for Captain Ellingham, it may be said that, before leaving 
the Friary, he had become entirely convinced that he was, or 
rather had been, the goose which Lady Farnleigh had called 
him, and was very earnestly purposed to be so no more. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


163 


Kate for her part was somewhat silent and thoughtful as 
she returned in the carriage to the Chase; and part of her 
thoughts were, that her godmamma had been well within the 
mark when she had characterized the Silverton arbiter elegantu 
arum in a word of four letters. She began to fear, indeed, 
that it would need six ; and one of them a double-u- to do it 
rightly. 


FND OF FART 


164 


LINPISFAEN CHASE, 


Part 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE “carte DE TENDRE.” 

That gathering at the Friary for archaeological purposes, 
which were so little served by it, was a memorable one to several 
of the persons who had been present at it. 

It was very memorable to little Dinah Wilkins, the child 
who had so nearly come to grief on the Nosey Stone, and 
whose indiscretion in strapng thither had produced — as indis- 
cretions will — so much trouble, and so many consequences, to 
people with whom it would have seemed that she and her indis- 
cretions could have had so little to do. She turned out to be 
a granddaughter of old Granny Wilkins, at Weston, Lady 
Farnleigh’s old pensioner, very well known to that lady and 
to Kate, and a still greater object of interest therefore to the 
latter, as soon as, in the progress of that heroic descent of the 
face of the cliff, she had got near enough to her to recognize 
her. It was a memorable day to little Dinah Wilkins, not only 
from the fright, the danger, the minutes of mortal anguish — 
hours they had seemed to her — during which she had been 
expecting to slip from her precarious position, and be dashed 
to instant death, every moment ; not only from the incidents 
of that wonderful rescue by the gentlefolks, the history of 
which, and the interest attending it, made the cottage of old 
Granny Wilkins a centre of attraction to half Weston for days 
afterwards ; but memorable also from the permanent influence 
the circumstances exercised in shaping the future course and 
destinies of the child’s after-life, in a manner which may, 
perhaps, be told in a future chapter — or which possibly may 
not find any place for telling in the course of this narrative, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


165 


seeing that, thougli they were curiously mixed up with the 
subsequent history of several of our dramatis personce, they are 
not essentially necessary to the understanding of the main 
thread of the narrative. 

The archaeological meeting manque was also a memorable 
day to Arthur Merrifcon. The incidents of it acquired for him 
a place in the Sillshire social world, and in Sillshire opinion, 
which the peculiarities of his character and position might 
otherwise perhaps have been slow to win for him. Captain 
Ellingham perceived and said that he was ‘‘ a fellow of the 
right sort ! ” Mr. Mat declared that he had the true stuff and the 
making of a Sillshire man in him. Lady Farnleigh said it was a 
great mistake to suppose that real manliness of character and all 
the best qualities generally included in the term, were only to be 
found allied with one class of idiosyncrasies and one set of 
habits and pursuits, or were incompatible with nervous shyness 
and dreaminess of manner and mind. And she unreservedly 
admitted to Kate that this second admirer of hers was not a 
prig, nor anything describable by any such obnoxious four 
letters. And the good opinion of Lady Farnleigh and Mr. 
Mat, operating both separately in different spheres, and also 
with mutually corroborating force in the same sphere, could go 
a long way towards making a good position for a man in 
Silverton and its neighbourhood. But what was the use of 
being recognised to be a fellow of the right sort, and to have 
the true stuff in him, to a man who, for his own part, recognised 
only this — that he was desperately in love, and that there was 
very little or no hope for him. And that was the frame of 
mind in which Arthur Merriton had walked down from the top 
of the Weston cliff to his own beautiful house at the foot of it, 
with the gardener and little Dinah Wilkins following behind 
him, and Kate Lindisfarn and Captain Ellingham, arm in arm, 
in front. 

It was characteristic of the man, that he perceived at once, 
or imagined that he perceived, that his case was hopeless. 
Many a man would not have admitted for himself, or judged for 
another that it was, or ought to have been so. All that large 
and potent class of considerations which have so great and 
often so paramount a share in managing Hymen’s affairs, and 
which make Dan Cupid laugh at his business-like brother 
Godship for always going about with a parchment deed under 
his arm, and a pen stuck behind his ear — all considerations of 
that sort were entirely in Merriton’s favour. Of course his 


166 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


eyes were opened as to Falconer’s business at the Chase, and 
his chances of winning the hand of Kate Lindisfarn. But this 
view of misery had only dissolved itself to make way for the 
appearance of a succeeding view, as terrible, and more sub- 
stantial. Ellingham was evidently the rival he had to fear. 
Old Mr. Falconer might talk, and nod, and smile meaningly to 
the end of time if he pleased ; but after that arrival at the top 
of the cliff together, with Dinah Wilkins in their joint charge, 
and that walking down into the valley arm in arm, as they 
returned from their joint exploit, Arthur Merriton judged it to 
be a hopeless case. He knew that Ellingham was a very poor 
man ; that Miss Lindisfarn was an heiress of no small mark 
and position ; that his own status in the matter of fortune was 
such as in the opinion of a prudent father might justify him in 
pretending to her hand. He knew — I suppose — that he was a 
very good-looking fellow. Many girls — young ones chiefly of 
the sentimental sort, who admire “sallow, sublime sort of 
Werther faced” men — would have considered him a much 
handsomer man than Captain Ellingham. He was well- 
educated, cultivated, gentlemanlike, and could read Dante with 
Kate, which Captain Ellingham could not. And Kate liked 
reading Dante, and that sort of thing, too. But Merriton 
judged all this to be of no avail ; and deemed his love hopeless. 
“ Faint heart never won fair lady ! ” says the proverb — half- 
true, keeping its promise to the ear and breaking it to the 
sense like a Sybilline oracle, as is the wont of such utterances 
of the wisdom of ages. I think I have seen the faint heart 
win, when the confident one was nowhere ! But it all depends 
on what it is that is to be won. You may catch gudgeons 
with bait that won’t do for a trout. Fred Falconer in 
Merriton’s place would not have deemed the matter hopeless, 
nor have given up the game. But if Ellingham had been at 
the bottom of the sea having reached that destination, it is to 
be understood, before, not after, that memorable archasological 
party — I think the fainter heart would have had the better 
chance of winning the fair lady. 

Arthur Merriton, however, being Arthur Merriton and not 
Frederick Falconer, did feel as he walked down behind Kate 
and Ellingham, that it was a hopeless case ; and it may be 
feared, did not feel in a particularly affectionate frame of mind 
towards little Dinah Wilkins whom he had toiled so hard to 
preserve. 

To Captain Ellingham the day was an especially memorable 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


167 

day, it is more than forty years ago, and the gallant Captain 
was on the wrong side of thirty at the time ; but he has not 
forgotten that day, not any smallest detail of the incidents of 
it, yet ! To him also it was a day of a great unsealing of the 
eyes. If his destiny had been so malignant as to have accorded 
him at once his heart’s desire, and thrown the lovely Margaret, 
the “ most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life,” into 
his arms as soon as his eye had fallen in love with her ! If 
there had been no fairy godmother to tell him that he was a 
goose, and knew nothing about the matter, and he had been 
allowed to follow his own blind fancies — to think of the wreck I 
But what about the matter as it stood now ? As to the two 
girls — “ Lombard Street to a China orange ! ” as people used 
to say in those days. There could be no doubt about it, as he 
saw the matter now, that Kate was not only, as Lady Farnleigh 
declared she was, the finer girl of the two, by daylight, but the 
noblest-hearted, the bravest — (it is a mistake, vo]jez vouSy 
Mesdames, to suppose that any man, except one whose 
weakness inclines him to mate with something weaker still, 
admires a woman for being cowardly ; so you may as well 
dispense with all those little tricks and prettinesses, the scope 
of which is to make it evident that your nerves are not equal 
to meeting a mouse in single combat) — the truest — he would 
have said the j oiliest, but that the vigour and aptitude of that 
expression, as applied to a young lady, had not been discovered 
by that backward and slow generation — the best, the dearest 
girl in all creation. That was a fact never more to be disputed 
or doubted, clear as the sun at noonday. 

But what then ? How did that very evident fact — evident 
to others as well as to him, unfortunately — interest him ? 
Was it to be supposed that the co-heiress of the Lindisfarn 
estates, would be permitted to marry a man, who, despite the 
noble blood in his veins, and the aristocratic prefix to his name, 
was absolutely dependent for his bread on a profession, which 
had hitherto afforded him so little of that necessary article ? 
That animal Falconer, who had been intimate with them all 
his life, was, as far as fortune went, in a position to calculate 
on the approbation of the lady’s family. There might be a 
hope, perhaps indeed a lurking conviction, at the bottom of his 
heart, that Kate was not the girl to give her heart to such a 
man as Mr. Frederick Falconer. But then there was Merriton ; 
a gentleman, a real good fellow, a man of fortune, a much 
better-looking fellow, as Captain Ellingham reflected again 


168 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


and again, than he was, far more calculated by his education 
and pursuits, to adapt himself to one side of Kate’s character 
and tastes ; and it was plain to see that he was desperately 
smitten with her. Captain Ellingham went over all these con- 
siderations carefully and dispassionately, as he thought, while 
he sate the following night, long after he ought to have turned 
into his cot, by the light of a smoky lamp, in the not very 
magnificent cabin of His Majesty’s revenue cutter, the Petrel. 
And he, too, though few braver or bolder men stepped a 
deck in the English navy, was faint-hearted in this matter of 
winning an heiress. 

In fact, if an elderly gentleman qui mores hominum muUorum 
vidit et urbes — which means, “ who has observed the loves and 
the love-making of many men and women ” — might have the 
pleasant privilege of whispering a word of counsel in a trans- 
parent pink little ear, he would say : “ Give that faint-heart- 
and-fair-lady proverb the lie ; and of two aspirants, incline 
rather, cceteris ^paribus — (which, being translated, means, sup- 
posing both of them to possess a similar number of thousands 
a-year, and an equally heroic outline of face) — to give the pre- 
ference to the faint-hearted over the confident-hearted swain.” 

Captain Ellingham was, as has been said, faint-hearted in 
this matter, and dared not allow himself to believe that Kate 
Lindisfarn, so beautiful, so much admired, so gay, so light- 
hearted, so fancy-free, with every right to look forward to a 
brilliant position in life, could be brought to think for an 
instant of him, a rough sailor, hardly a young man in the 
eyes of a girl in her teens, with a rough brown face, tanned 
and bronzed and hardened by exposure to wind and weather ; 
at odds with Fortune, too, and not the better fitted for shining 
in drawing-rooms, or winning the ear of youth and beauty, by 
the discipline of his long tussle with that fickle jade. Pooh, 
pooh ! what had he to do with falling in love with heiresses in 
their teens ? That was his proper place (viz., the sufficiently 
dull and dreary looking cabin of his cutter), and his profession 
the only mistress he should think of wooing. 

And Kate ? Was the day of the Archasological visit to the 
Friary a memorable one to her also? Fancy-free, Captain 
Ellingham had called her, in his mental survey of all the con- 
ditions of the case that made up his hopelessness. Was she so 
wholly fancy-free ? The amount and extent of fancy captivity 
which could be predicated of her in the case of Fred Falconer 
has been explained, with, it is hoped, sufilcient care to avoid 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


169 


representing it to have been more than it really was. But how 
about it noiv ? That day of archaeological investigation, if it 
had eventually failed to finally settle the great question of the 
date of the Friary washhouse, had, nevertheless, done much 
towards the investigation of some other things. It had been 
a great day for the unsealing of blinded eyes. Several persons 
saw several things clearly which they had never seen before. 
And I think we may say that thenceforward Kate was fancy- 
free as regarded Frederick Falconer. He had both done and 
left undone much which had contributed to this result. And 

Kate was safely enough off with the old no, I must not say 

that. The cautious old proverb does not hit the case. Besides, 
it would insinuate what I have no right to insinuate at this stage 
of Kate’s history. 

Still all this beating about the bush does not answer the 
question whether Kate Lindisfarn was fancy-free from and after 
that day at the Friary. 

Well ! It is so difficult to be categorical in such matters. 
Merriton, who walked behind her and Ellingham, as they 
returned from the top of the cliff, had a strong opinion upon 
the subject. I am sure he would have boxed his own ears 
rather than have suffered them to catch a word of conversation 
that was not intended for them. Yet he did form a very strong 
opinion. But then, on the other hand, he was very far from 
being an impartial observer. It is certain that Kate was 
remarkably, and, for her, singularly silent and abstracted as 
they returned in the carriage to the Chase. For Mr. Mat told 
Lady Farnleigh afterwards, that finding that Kate would not 
talk, and not feeling any inclination to talk with Margaret, 
with whom he had been not a little disgusted in the course of 
the day, he had pretended to go to sleep ; but had remained 
quite awake to the fact that hardly a word passed between the 
sisters on their way home. 

And then again, judging from the sequel if it did not 

date from that day, we know that it was there soon after. 

What was where ? 

Pshaw ! You Know what I mean. There is no doubt that 
she was fond of him during that ensuing winter, I suppose. 

Ah ! but in these heart histories, chronology is everything. 
Let us be chronological, whatever we are. Was Kate Lindis- 
farn fancy-free when, having assisted Ellingham in getting 
little Dinah Wilkins to the top of the cliff, and being assisted 
by him in getting herself up, and having exchanged congra- 


170 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tulations, etc., and panted in unison when the top was reached, 
and having walked down by the steep path arm in arm back 
again to the Friary, and having, with all due mutual self- 
denegations, and ‘‘No! it was you, who,” and “Don’t you 
remember,” and so forth, shared between them the applause 
and hero-worship of the rest of the party during the remainder 
of the evening, they separated with not unmeaning touch of 

palm to palm at parting was Kate fancy-free tlien^ I say ? 

That is the question. 

Well, we know what girls are. It has been said, “ Tell me 
who your friends are, and I will tell you what you are.” And 
it might with quite as much truth be said. Tell me whom a 
girl falls in love with, and I will tell you what she is ; — or vice 
versa, Tell me what she is, and I will tell you with whom she is 
likely to fall in love. A pleasing exterior, a handsome face 
and well- formed person, are naturally, and in accordance with 
superior arrangements, the wisdom of which we cannot and 
may not question, potent conciliators and attractors of woman’s 
love. But there is no more significant symptom of the high 
level of moral character, and nobility of heart prevailing 
among Englishwomen, than the all but universality of the 
sentiment which makes an absence of these advantages, if 
compensated by a touch of heroism, more acceptable to them 
than any perfection of personal attraction in combination with 
a manifest deficiency of all heroism. 

The quick sudden heart-beat ; the violent ebb of the blood, 
which left the cheek deadly pale, to be succeeded in the next 
instant by a rush of the rich colour to face and brow and neck ; 
the mixture of exulting pleasure with the short sharp agony 
of terror, which had caused Kate to shade her eyes with her 
hand, at the moment that Ellingham had made his desperate 
leap from the ladder to the bush on the chfiF-face beside her, — 
all this told of a sympathy between their two natures, deeper 
and far more powerful than any such mere liking and inclina- 
tion as might have been produced by the ball-room wooing of 
the most faultless of Hyperions. And if exactitude of chron- 
ology in the matter of the birth of young love in this case be 
insisted on, my impression is, that the register may, with the 
greatest chance of absolute accuracy, date from the moment 
when Captain Ellingham alighted in the bushes from that 
perilous jump. 

Just as if any fellow would not jump into any bush for such 
a prize ! 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


171 


Yes, my ingenuous young British friends ! There are plenty 
of you TV ho would, and some who get the chance, and do such 
things. And a discriminating and appreciating public in 
crinoline and pork-pie hats does accordingly adore those of 
you who do them, and generously give credit for good inten- 
tions to those of you who do not get the chance of doing them. 
But somehow or other that — one would say upon the whole, 
perhaps, not specially profound — pork-pie-hatted public, does, 
ii mark you, contrive most astonishingly to nose the hollow 
j pretences of those few among you, who having the chance, 

; would do nothing of the kind. 

i And then the party at Wanstrow came off. And Margaret 
! had to be asked by the hostess in a clear and ringing voice, 

I before all the assembled party, whether she had entirely 
i recovered from her indisposition at the Friary ? And Freddy 
, had to be complimented as audibly upon the admirable skill 
and tact he had shown in managing and tending symp- 
toms, which the habits and ways of the Silverton young 
^ ladies — doubtless by reason of the fine Sillshire air and 
I climate — had probably never given him any opportunity of 
studying. 

Lady Farnleigh took very good care upon this occasion that 
Ellingham should have Kate for his neighbour at dinner ; and 
his inquiries about little Dinah Wilkins, aiid Kate’s replies and 
i her report of all the gratitude, and the wonder, and the blessings 
I which she was charged to convey to him from old Dame Wilkins, 

: and from the child’s mother, made them feel like old friends, who 
had a variety of subjects in common between them. And then 
I the sailing party had to be talked over. And Captain Ellingham 
|| explained, that it was not so much the quantity as the quality 
'of the wind, that might make the excursion disagreeable to 
ladies. And he inquired how far Kate would choose to brave 
i the chance of a ducking, as the cutter was apt, under certain 
conditions to be wet. 

“ As for being afraid of anything a capful of wind is likely 
to bring you, that I know I need not suspect you of. Miss 
Lindisfarn,” said he “ but you may not like to get wet through 
with salt water. And what about the others ? ” 

“ Oh, Margaret will be ready whenever you give the wo^'d. 
I don’t think she would mind a capful of wind, as you call it. 
Why do sailors always talk of caps full of wind ? ” 

“ I cannot tell what the origin of the term may have been ; 
a corruption from some very different word, perhaps. But it 


172 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


is curious how nearly definite a quantity it signifies in nautical 
language/’ 

“ And what amount of trouble would a capful jf wind give 
the Petrel ! ” asked Kate. 

“ Oh ! no trouble at all, except to cause the helmsman a little 
extra vigilance and activity. The Petrel is a capital sea boat, 
but she is what we call lively ; apt to jump about a good deal, ii 
and wet her decks when there is any sea ; and that, you know, I 
would not be pleasant for ladies.” 

But then it comes pretty nearly to waiting for a calm ; 
and there would be no fun in that. I should so much better 
like to make acquaintance with your pet Petrel^ when she is in 
one of her lively moods. What signifies a little wetting ? 
One does not catch cold with salt water, they say : and we 
should come home and get dry.” 

“ But you forget, Miss Lindisfarn, that I cannot answer for 
the movements of my Petrel with the certainty you can count 
on Birdie. We may go out with a wind and not be able to • 
return quite so soon as we expect. I strongly recommend, ( 
especially as we are to take a windy day, that everybody should 
take a change of clothes with them.” 

“ Yes ! that would be the plan. And if we got kept out all 
night, what capital fun it would be. Do, pray. Captain Elling- 1 
ham, let us choose a day when there is a capful of vrind. I 
should so like to see the Petrel lively.” 

“ Well, if Lady Farnleigh will consent, I have no objection. 
Only remember, that wind is one of those good things that you 
may have too much of.” 

“ Oh, what a very cautious and prudent man you are ! ” 

“ That is a high compliment to a sailor. Pray make that 
opinion known to my Lords of the Admiralty.” 

And Lady Parnleigh’s consent was obtained for the selection 
of a day, when, if possible, without having too much of a good 
thing, the Petrel should be seen in one of her livelier moods, i 
And the proposed excursion came off accordingly. And the\ 
Petrel retained sufficient discretion amid her liveliness to bring 
them all back to port before nightfall, although rather in a 
bedraggled condition, as Captain Ellingham had predicted. 
And Kate had rendered him more desperately in love with her 
than ever, by the intoxication of high spirits with which she i 
had enjoj^ed her sail. She declared that it was glorious, and : 
she was almost inclined to think even better than being on 
Birdie, when she was at her hveliest. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


173 


And thus, sometimes in one way, and sometimes in another, 
sometimes at Lindisfarn, sometimes at Wans trow, sometimes 
at the Friary, and once or twice in Silverton, all the members 
of the little circle with whom the reader has been made ac- 
quainted, saw a good deal of each other during the remainder 
of the autumn months, and through the winter. But as the 
only net result of all this was to render more definite, clear, 
and palpable to themselves and to the friends around them, 
those relations of the parties to each other, which were fore- 
shadowed by the previous intercourse between them, and which 
the judicious reader has already distinguished spinning them- 
selves out of the filaments of fate in the chiaroscuro of the 
future, it will not be necessary to follow with historical accu- 
racy all the pleasant processes of this destiny- spinning. 

It will be sufficient for our purpose to present a brief and 
succinct, but accurate report of the state of the warp and 
woof, which had been produced by the time when the birds 
begin to sing, by all the sailing, and riding, and walking, and 
talking, and dancing, and laughing, and pleasant intercourse 
of all kinds, which go to the spinning of fate’s filaments in 
this department of human affairs. 

Frederick Falconer, like a sensible and business-like man, 
who when he has made a resolution acts up to it, had con- 
sistently carried out the programme he had drawn up for 
himself. Forsaking all others, he had steadily set himself to 
the work of winning Margaret Lindisfarn. And that work 
had to all appearance progressed satisfactorily, nofc only to 
the principals themselves, but to the lookers-on at the game. 

' We have obtained a sufficient peep into the sanctuary of Kate’s 
; heart, to assure us, that her whilom admirer’s far more declared 
and evident homage to her sister awakened no shadow of 
! jealousy or pain there. Lady Farnleigh’s declaration that 

I Freddy Falconer might make love to any girl in the county, 
i for aught she cared, provided he did not do so to her god- 

! ; daughter, seemed to include her goddaughter’s sister in its 
' licence. The young gentleman stood well, as has been said, in 

I I the Silverton public estimation ; the old banker was well known 
■ I to be a very warm man ; and there appeared to be no reasons 
‘i of any sort why Miss Lindisfarn’s family should not consider 
) I that his only son was a very proper match in all respects for 
i! one of the co-heiresses. Mr. Frederick’s own sentiments on 
11 the matter we are already in possession of. As to those of 

1 Margaret, a greater degree of reticence and more reserve are 


174 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


proper in handling* the delicate topic of a young lady’s feelings 
upon such a subject. Nevertheless, perhaps, the judicious 
reader may have acquired a sufficient insight into Miss Mar- 
garet’s idiosyncracy to enable him to estimate pretty accurately 
the state of her feelings and the nature of her views. There 
can be no harm in saying that she really did like Frederick very 
much. She thought him very agreeable and very handsome. 
But it will of course be understood — at least by those who are 
conversant with the system on which Margaret had been 
educated, and with the results of ifc on the development of 
docile and well-disposed pupils — that it would have appeared 
to her the height of unworthiness, and even of indelicacy, to 
permit such feehngs and considerations to stand in the way of 
her transferring her affections to a worthier object — say a 
wealthy peer of the realm, or a commoner with a hundred 
thousand a-year — should such .an one present himself before 
the final adjudication of the prize. 

As to Kate what can be said? The subject is a less 

pleasing one, both for the veracious historian to set forth, and 
for the well-regulated mind of the reader to contemplate. A 
right-minded heroine, who has any claim to the title, and 
behaves herself as such, never allows herself, as we all know, 
to feel the slightest preference for any individual of the other 
sex, until she has received a declaration of love and demand for 
her hand in due form. Then and thereupon, she may, if she 
think fit, forthwith feel and acknowledge the tender passion in 
any degree of intensity. The “popping of the question” is 
supposed to act, in short, like the opening of an Artesian 
well, through which, when it has once reached the secret 
reservoir of the still waters, hidden from every eye, deep, 
deep away below the surface, they rush forth with impetuosity, 
and in the most copious abundance. Till that last bit of the 
lover’s work has been accomplished ,no sign of the living 
water rewards his toil. This is the true and correct theory 
of love, as practised and understood by the most authorized 
heroines. 

But poor Kate’s education had not, unhappily, been such as 
efficiently to prepare her for the vocation. She was impetuous, 
we know. She was apt to permit the consciousness of a pure 
and guileless heart to hurry her into a practice of following its 
dictates, without waiting to compare them, as she should have 
done, with the text of the laws made and provided for the 
regulation of a heroine’s sentiments. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


175 


In short — for the truth must come out, sooner or later — by 
the time the spring came, Kate was thoroughly in love with 
Captain Ellingham, though he had said no word of love to her. 
Not but that she had kept her own secret so well that he had 
no suspicion of it ; whereas he had by no means been equally 
successful in keeping his. Women are more lynx-eyed in these 
matters than men. Though she would not allow it even to her 
own self in the secresy of her maiden meditations, at the 
; bottom of her heart there was a consciousness and a perse- 
vering little voice that would not be silenced, which told her 
she was loved. 

* And she was happy with a very perfect happiness in the 
consciousness of it, although he had spoken no word, and 
although she was perfectly aware of the bearings of that 
business-like aspect of the matter, which to him seemed a well- 
nigh insuperable barrier between them. She knew perfectly 
well her own position and the value of it. She knew his 
position ; and felt upon the subject as a loving woman in such 
circumstances does feel. Nor did she conceive that there was 
I any great difficulty to be overcome in the matter. She had no 
I doubt that it would all come right. Was there not the fairy 
j godmother, who saw it all, of course, though she said nothing ; 

; and understood it all ? 

And as for Ellingham himself ? His part in this stage of 
the drama was a less happy one. He had suffered himself to 
become irremediably engrossed by a passion which he greatly 
feared must be a hopeless one. And the sort of manner and 
tone, and conduct which his fear caused him to impose on 
, himself towards Kate, would have either puzzled, or offended, 

, or pained a girl more on the look-out for flirtations, more on 
■ the qid vive to watch for the manifestations of admiration and 
' the results of it, either for the encouragement or discourage- 
* , ment of them — more self-conscious, in a word, than Kate was 
' in this matter. 

[ And yet, notwithstanding Ellingham’s fears and discourage- 
i ments, it was impossible for him not to perceive a difference in 
I Kate’s manner towards him and towards Arthur Merriton. 
^ 1 But with self-tormenting perverseness, he told himself that 
’ I this was only caused by poor Merriton’s assiduous and uncon- 
® i cealed admiration. It was plain enough that there was no 
^ hope for him ; and that Kate found it necessary to show him 
®|!as much. Probably, if Merriton were as cautious and self- 
'll restrained in his manner towards her as he himself was, her 


176 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tone towards him would be as frankly friendly as it was towards 
himself. 

And thus is completed, I think, the carte de tendre as laid 
down from a survey of the hearts of the principal members of 
our dramatis 'personoe in the early spring of the year following 
Margaret Lindisfarn’s return to her paternal home. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

WINIFRED PENDLETON, 

On one evening of the March of that spring. Lady Farnleigh 
and Captain Ellingham had been dining, and were about to 
sleep at the Chase. Notwithstanding that matters between 
Kate and Walter Ellingham must be considered, as appears 
from the general survey and report made in the last chapter, to 
have been in a less advanced and less satisfactory position than 
those of Margaret and Fred Falconer, nevertheless it had come 
to pass that Ellingham was on terms of greater intimacy with 
the other members of the family at the Chase, and was a more 
frequent visitor there than Falconer. This had no doubt in 
some degree arisen from the circumstances which caused him 
often to be a sleeping as well as dining visitor at the house. 
There was no reason why Fred Falconer should sleep at the 
Chase. There was his home in Silverton between five and six 
miles off, his horse ready for him, and a good road all the way. 
And though it had been the habit in old times — that is to say, 
in the times before Margaret came home from Paris — for him 
to be a frequent guest at the Chase, it had never been the prac- 
tice for him to sleep there. 

The case of Ellingham was different. He had no home save 
his ship, lying off in Sillmouth Roads. It was between eight 
and nine miles to the landing-place in Sillmouth harbour, and 
then there was a dark and most likely very rough row off to 
his ship at the end of that. Then again it had always been 
the practice, during many years, for Lady Farnleigh to sleep at 
the Chase after dining there in winter. And such visits were 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


177 


very apt to be prolonged to a second and a third day or more. 
Lady Farnleigh was the solitary inhabitant of the fine large 
house up at Wanstrow, and it was very lonely and very dreary 
and very storm-blown up there in winter. It was much 
pleasanter to spend a long winter’s evening in the cheery 
pleasant drawing-room at the Chase, amid the sociable family 
circle there. And though occasionally Kate went to stay for a 
few days with her godmother, and sometimes, but more rarely, 
the whole family party at the Chase were induced to pass an 
evening at Wanstrow, by far the more common practice was 
for Lady Farnleigh to be staying in the house at Lindisfarn. 
And as Ellingham mostly came thither with her, and from 
the very close intimacy and friendship subsisting between them 
was naturally considered as belonging in some sort to her suite, 
it had followed that the same invitations and arrangements 
which made her so frequently an inmate of the house had ex- 
tended themselves naturally to him. 

Then again he got on better with the other members of the 
family. Fred Falconer could hardly have been said to be much 
of a favourite there, except in one gentle breast. He was 
always a welcome guest, it is true. Of course he was, because 
he always had been so, from the time when he used to ride over 
on his little pony, with a servant walking by his side and hold- 
ing the rein. His father was a much-respected neighbour and 
old friend. Nobody had anything to say against Freddy him- 
self. Of course he was a welcome guest. Miss Immy perfectly 
well remembered the days when she used to give him cake and 
cowslip wine, and other such like dainties in the housekeeper’s 
room. And the Squire had been accustomed to “ only Freddy 
Falconer,” for the last twenty years, and never felt that his 
presence entailed the least necessity for abstaining from his 
after-dinner nap. Nevertheless it has been seen that Mr. Mat 
and he did not get on well together, and that Lady Farnleigh 
had a sort of prejudice against him. Curiously enough, too, 
another class — on whose idiosyncrasies and likes and dislikes 
we are apt to speculate with much the same sort of curiosity 
with which we regard the ways and instincts of creatures of a 
different species, so cut off from all community of sentiment, 
and all intelligible interchange of idea and feeling are they — 
the servants, did not like Freddy Falconer. 

All these different people liked Ellingham. He and Mr. 
Mat had come to be hand and glove. Miss Immy had begun to 
> think him real Sillshire. And thus it had come to pass that 
12 


178 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


he had become more domesticated in the house, and more 
intimate with them all than Falconer, although the acquaint- 
anceship of the latter had dated from so much earlier a period. 

The same concatenation of circumstances, by-the-bye, serves 
in a great degree to account for the imprudence with which he 
had gone on during all the winter falling deeper and deeper 
and more inextricably in love with Kate. He had not, like 
Falconer, and like the young shopman who takes his sweetheart 
out for a walk on Sunday, gone on a love-making expedition 
with malice prepense, and self-conscious determination. He 
had been drifting into love, insensibly making lee-way all the 
winter. 

It was March ; and both Ellingham and Lady Farnleigh had 
been staying for the last few days at the Chase. Falconer had 
dined there on the day before, and on the morrow Lady Farn- 
leigh was to return to Wanstrow, and Captain Ellingham to 
his ship. 

It was an exceedingly rough and boisterous night ; and such 
weather was seasonable, for it was about the time of the equi- 
liox. The wind sighs a differently modulated song in woods of 
different kinds. Theocritus talks of the sweet murmuring of 
the fir-tree ; and Alexander Smith tells how, 

“ Wind the mighty harper smote his thunder -harp of pines.” 

But there were no pines on Lindisfarn brow, though there 
were a few behind, and on the left side of the house. The long 
moaning, however, rising from time to time into a fierce pro- 
voked roar, which continued to encircle the house like a live 
thing piteously seeking an entrance, — ^this remonstrating moan- 
ing and angry roaring came from the oaks on Lindisfarn brow. 
The Squire would be sure to be out the very first thing on the 
morrow morning, and up among his beloved woods on the brow, 
to see what mischief had been caused by the storm. He would 
wince sometimes, as he sate in his chair of an evening, when 
the winds were keeping it up and maldng a night of it in 
the Lindisfarn woods, from a fellow-feeling for his trees, and 
sympathy with the torment they were undergoing from the 
tempest. 

It was a night of that kind ; and the Squire and Captain 
Ellingham and Mr. Mat, were sitting over their wine before a 
huge fire of logs in the low-roofed, oak-pannelled, old-fashioned 
dining-room at the Chase, and the Squire was lamenting tbe*’^* 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


179 


mischief that was being worked among his trees ; and the 
Captain was hoping that old Joe Saltash, his second in com- 
mand on board the Petrel^ had made all snug and was all right 
in Sillmouth Harbour. The ladies had gone to the drawing- 
room, Miss Immy, scorning to lie down on the sofa, and sitting 
bolt upright on it, was nevertheless fast asleep, with her volume 
of “Clarissa Harlowe” by her side. Margaret was reading at 
one side of the table, and Lady Farnleigh and Kate were 
sitting on the opposite side of the fire-place to Miss Immy, and 
were talking together in low voices, when the servant came 
into the room, and said : — 

“ Please, Miss Kate, Mrs. Pendleton is here ; and is very 
wishful to speak to you, if you would be so kind. She’s in the 
housekeeper’s room.” 

“You don’t mean to say, George, that Mrs. Pendleton has 
come up to the Chase, now, in this weather ? ” 

“ Yes, Miss ; she has just come in. She says she was blowed 
away almost ; but she ain’t none so wet. It’s more wind than 
rain.” 

“ Tell her I’ll come to her directly, George. I suppose there 
is a good fire in the housekeeper’s room ? ” 

“Yes, Miss.” 

“ What can have brought her up to the Chase at this hour, 
and on such a night as this ? ” said Kate to Lady Farnleigh, as 
the man left the room. 

“ Some trouble or other, I suppose. I am not sure that I 
quite approve of your seeing so much of Mrs. Pendleton, and 
making such a pet of her as you do, Kate.” 

“ Oh,. I can’t give up poor dear Winifred ; it is out of the 
question,” answered Kate. 

“ Well, no. I don’t want you to give her up ; you can hardly 
do that for auld lang syne sake. But I don’t half like that 
husband of hers. Besides,” added Lady Farnleigh, with an 
arch look at Kate, and a laugh in her eye, “ however tolerant 
and willing to wink one may have been when one had no con- 
cern with the collection of His Majesty’s customs, we are 
enlisted on the other side now, Kate ! ” 

Kate laughed and coloured, as she replied, “ I don’t know 
that I have changed sides at all. At all events, I must go now, 
and see what Winifred wants.” 

Margaret had raised her eyes from her book while the above 
conversation had been passing, just sufficiently to have showm 
to anybody who had been watching her, that she had paid 
12-2 


180 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


attention to it ; but she made no remark on anything that had 
been said. 

Winifred, it must be explained, had been Kate’s nurse for 
many years. She was the daughter of an old forester in the 
Squire’s employment, to whose care his dearly loved woods 
were entrusted, who had passed a long life in the service of the 
Squire and his father, and was a specially valued and favourite 
servant. Winifred Parker, the Lindisfarn forester’s daughter, 
had been a very beautiful girl, when at eighteen she was 
engaged by the late Mrs. Lindisfarn as under nurse to her 
twins. Very shortly after that, three events happened. Mrs. 
Lindisfarn died, as we know. One of the twins, Margaret, was 
shortly afterwards, as we also know, sent away to Paris. And 
very speedily after that. Old John Parker the forester met 
with his death from the fall of a tree, which he was engaged 
in felling. He was not killed on the spot ; but had been 
removed to his cottage, w'here the Squire, and Miss Immy, 
and Mr. Mat, greatly grieving, had all of them jointly and 
singly promised the dying man that his children (he was a 
widower, and had besides Winifred, another daughter and a 
son) should be cared for, and not suffered to come to want. 
Kone of the three who had thus promised, were people at all 
likely to forget a promise given under such circumstances, or 
satisfy themselves with any grudging* or merely perfunctory 
performance of it. The other children were well cared for, 
and Winifred, who had already made herself a favourite in the 
household, was retained, a greater favourite than ever, as special 
attendant on the little Kate. 

In that position she had remained, endearing herself to all the 
family, and especially to her little charge, improving’ herself 
considerably in many respects, and giving perfect satisfaction to 
everybody who knew her, for between eleven and twelve years ; 
that is to say, till she herself was thirty years old, till Kate 
was twelve, and till a period about six years previous to the 
date of the events that have been narrated in these pages. 

To the entire satisfaction of everybody who knew her, I have 
written ; and on the whole, such may fairly be said to have 
been the case. Yet during most of those years there had been 
one subject on which Winifred and her kind friends and pro- 
tectors had differed. Even in this matter, however, she had 
been so reasonable, so good, so docile, that the difference, far 
from having caused any quarrel, had turned itself rather into 
a title the more to their affection and interest in her. Winifred 


LINDISFARN OHASE. 


181 


had been a remarkably beautiful girl ; and it is hardly neces- 
sary to say that this one subject of trouble arose from the 
source from which most of the troubles that assail pretty girls 
are apt to spring. 

There was a certain Hiram Pendleton, respecting whom the 
pretty Winifred held the conscientious and wholly invincible 
opinion, that he was in all respects the finest and noblest being 
that had ever stepped this sublunary globe. The family at the 
Chase thought that he was not so in all respects. That he was 
one of the finest in some, was very evident to all who looked at 
him. A handsomer presentation of a young sailor — Pendleton 
was a Sillmouth man, and that was his condition of life — it 
would have been difficult to conceive. Nor had the friends and 
protectors of Winifred anything very strong to urge against 
him in other respects. Still there was enough, they thought, 
to cause and justify their unwillingness to give into his keeping 
so great a prize and so precious a charge as their pretty and 
much petted Winifred. 

In the first place, Hiram Pendleton had somewhat sunk in 
the social scale. Winifred was indignant that what was due 
to misfortune should be made a matter of reproach against 
her hero. To a certain degree, perhaps, she was right. Per- 
haps not altogether so. Hiram’s father had been a boat- 
owner ; but somehow or other the son had fallen from that 
position, and had been constrained, or had chosen (he and 
Winifred said the latter), to make one or two voyages before 
the mast. He was, at all events, such an A.B. that he could at 
any time command his pick of employment in such a capacity. 
But he was said to be “ wild ; ” and I am afraid the truth is, 
that pretty girls — even those who are as good as Winifred 
Parker was — are apt to prefer wild men to tame ones ; just as 
I do ducks, and for the same reason ; that there is more flavour 
about them. 

And then again there were rumours as to the not altogether 
avowable nature of the voyages in which Pendleton had been 
engaged. One thing, however, was ce^Tain ; and it outweighed 
a whole legion of facts, even if they had been authentically 
ascertained ones, on the other side of the question, in Wini- 
fred’s opinion. And this undeniable truth was, that every time 
he had returned to Sillmouth, he had again and again urged 
his suit with indefatigable perseverance and constancy. Wini- 
fred was only two and twenty when Hiram Pendleton first fell 
in love with her ; and she was nearly thirty before she accepted 


18 & 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


him. And all that time she had been in love with him ; and 
all that time she had waited, and made him wait, in obedience 
to the wishes and advice of her friends at the Chase ; and all 
that time Pendleton had been constant. 

He did more to win his love, besides showing himself a 
pattern of constancy. He manifested signs of becoming a 
steady and reformed character. He came home from his last 
voyage with a good bit of money ; and announcing his inten- 
tion to go no more a roaming, he invested his savings in the 
purchase of a neat fishing smack and tackle, and settled him- 
self as a scot-and-lot-paying inhabitant of Sillmouth. 

Could any Jacob serve more faithfully for his Rachel ? 

In fact, Winifred Parker’s friends did not feel themselves 
justified in any longer resisting the match. If Hiram Pendle- 
ton’s start in life had been somewhat amiss, he had amended it 
and reformed. If all the parts of the career by which he had 
reached his present position could not bear close scrutiny, that 
position was at all events now a respectable and responsible 
one. And, as Winifred Parker often said, and yet more often 
thought to herself, such constancy as Hiram had shown in his 
courtship of her was rarely to be matched. So the marriage 
took place at last, with the still somewhat reluctantly given 
consent of the Lindisfarn family, when Winifred was at least 
old enough to know her own mind, for she was on the verge of 
thirty. She had, however, lost none of her remarkable beauty; 
for it was real beauty, and not mere prettiness ; no heaute du 
diahle, to disappear with the evanescent bloom of girlhood, but 
the more durable handsomeness arising from fine and regular 
features, perfect health and admirably well-developed figure. 
Winifred Parker had been one of those pretty girls, who, 
having in them the promise of perfect womanhood, can hardly 
be said to have reached their culminating point of loveliness 
till that has been attained. 

She was between five and six and thirty, and had become the 
mother of two fine boys and a girl, at the time when she pre- 
sented herself on the stormy night in question at the old house 
in which she had passed, so happily, the best years of her life. 
But it would have been difficult to meet with a handsomer 
woman of her sort than Winifred Pendleton was and looked, 
after her walk up from Silverton to the Chase that stormy 
night. 

She was, as the servant had said, not very wet ; for the 
storm was as yet more of wind than of rain. But of the 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


183 


former tliere was enough to increase very considerably the 
fatigue of a stout walker, and to produce a glow and redness of 
colouring in her cheeks, which somewhat exaggerated the 
always healthy and fresh-coloured appearance of them. Her 
bright black eye, beaming with shrewdness, intelligence, and 
energy, was not so large as beautiful eyes are often seen in 
individuals, of the Celtic and Latin races, and not unfrequently 
in favourable specimens of the high-bred classes of our own 
much-mixed blood. The dark eyes of the large liquid type, 
such eyes as Margaret Lindisfarn’s, are rarely seen among those 
classes of our population which represent with least admixture 
the Saxon element of our ancestry. 

A great abundance of glossy but not very fine black hair, 
blown into considerable disorder by her walk through the 
storm, added to her appearance that grace of picturesqueness, 
which belongs, by prescription, to gipsies, and such like mem- 
bers of the anti-scot-and-lot-paying classes, but which is hardly 
compatible with the demureness of thorough respectability. 
The large mouth was one of great beauty and sweetness. Any 
child or dog would have unhesitatingly accorded implicit trust 
and affection to the owner of it. The tall figure, with its well 
and fully developed bust, round and lithe but not too slender 
waist, and its general expression of springy elastic strength 
and agility, was the very perfection of womanhood, — a sculp- 
tor’s model for an Eve. 

But why did Lady Farnleigh suppose at once that trouble of 
some sort was the cause of Mrs. Pendleton’s visit to the Chase? 
And why did she disapprove of Kate’s .closeness of intimacy 
with so old, so meritorious, and so well-loved a humble friend 
of her family ? And what was the meaning of her joking, 
but not the less seriously meant allusion to the collection 
of His Majesty’s revenue, and to the share w^hich Captain 
Ellingham had in the due accomplishment of that collection ? 

The truth was, in one word, that the Honourable Captain 
Ellingham, commanding His Majesty’s revenue cutter Fetrely 
and Hiram Pendleton, were enlisted on opposite sides in the 
great and permanent quarrel arising out of that matter of 
collecting His Majesty’s revenue. Pendleton, the bold and 
able seaman — ^not unacquainted, if all tales were true, with 
lawbreaking in the course of his professional career, the 
capitalist in possession of a fishing smack, and nets, and a 
small sum into the bargain, safely stowed away — (not in Messrs. 
Falconer and Fishbourne’s books), had been led into embark- 


lindisfahn chase. 


I8i 

ing his courage, his seamanship, and his capital, in the then 
promising and tempting profession of a smuggler. And it is 
not to be understood that the pretty Winifred either put her 
apron to her eyes, or gave any other indication of considering 
herself an unfortunate and miserable woman, or went with a 
whining who-would-have-thought-it complaints to her friends at 
the Chase, or with a long face to the parson, the magistrate, 
or any other authority whatsoever, or went to the dogs. Hiram 
Pendleton had been as constant a husband as he had been a 
lover. He was as much in love with his wife, and she with 
him, after some six years of marriage, as they had been for the 
six years before it. And under these circumstances, if Hiram 
had thought fit to levy war against the sacred person of 
Majesty itself, instead of only against Majesty’s revenue, Wini- 
fred would have stuck to him and backed him. 

Hor must it be supposed that, in those days of oppressive 
and excessive custom duties, the trade and position of the bold 
smuggler was regarded by any class of the public quite in the 
same light as it is in our better instructed, more legality-loving 
and more politico- economical times. Although, of course, 
persons in the position of Lady Farnleigh and Squire Lindis- 
farn could not but disapprove of the smuggler’s trade, shake 
their heads at his doings, and seriously lament that their 
former misgivings with regard to Pendleton should have been 
thus justified, there was, even in that sphere, no very strong 
repugnance to the man or his illegal enterprises ; and Wini- 
fred’s old friends, when Mr. Mat would from time to time come 
home from Silverton or Sillmouth with some story of a success- 
fully run cargo, were apt, though with due and proper protest 
and disavowal, to feel more sympathy with the bold and fortu- 
nate smuggler than with His Majesty’s defrauded revenue. 

Kate had been always specially daring and outspoken in her 
illegal sympathies, protesting loudly that smuggling was as 
fair on one side as the press-gang on the other ; that one was 
no more wrong than the other ; that those who pulled the 
longest faces were ready enough to buy a French silk dress or 
keg of French brandy ; and that, for her part, she was not 
going to give up dear old Winifred for all the Custom House 
officers in the kingdom. And so a very considerable amount 
of friendship and intercourse had been kept up between Kate 
and her old nurse, notwithstanding that the latter had become 
a daring smuggler’s wife ; and though the young lady’s visits 
— generally accompanied by Mr. Mat, whose sympathies and 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


185 


moralities upon the subject were quite as faulty as Kate’s — 
though the visits, I say, to Mrs. Pendleton’s pretty and 
picturesque cottage under the rocks at the far end of Sillmouth 
sands, were generally made, and understood to be made, when 
the master of it was away, it had nevertheless occurred that a 
bow, returned by no unfriendly nod on the part of the fair lady, 
had more than once passed between her and the owner of 
Deep Creek cottage. 

In a word, the family at the Chase, and Kate more especially, 
had determined not to give up their old and much- valued 
protege, notwithstanding the regretable, but in those times and 
those latitudes not unpardonable and not very severely repro- 
bated, courses into which her husband had fallen. And an 
amount of toleration and even sympathy for Mrs. Pendleton’s 
family interests and prosperities and adversities, had been felt 
and even professed by Kate (who was apt to profess all she felt 
I on most subjects), greater than perhaps might have been the 
[ case if the young lady had been better aware of all that the 
life and pursuits of a smuggler involve and may lead to ; and at 
the same time an amount of winking at illegalities, which they 
were bound to discountenance, had been practised by the elder 
, and more responsible members of the family, which worshipful 
i and law-abiding people in this improved age of the world’s 
history, will perhaps consider as scarcely justifiable or prudent. 

And now came new circumstances, which had a tendency to 
complicate these relationships. It was quite clear that between 
Captain Ellingham and Hiram Pendleton there could be neither 
i truce nor toleration. And, as Lady Farnleigh said, “ they ” — 
that is, she and her goddaughter, and the rest of the family at the 
' Chase — were now enlisted on the other side. As her ladyship 
had also remarked, when first speaking to Kate of Walter 

I Ellingham, it was bad to be a smuggler on the Sillshire coast, 
[ when the Petrel and her commander were on duty on that 

II station. And it was likely to be difficult to cultivate friendly 
lj relations with both parties. 

I And now what, under these circumstances, could Mrs. 
I Pendleton want this stormy night up at the Chase? 


186 


tiINDISFARN CHASE. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

A HARD, HARD TASK 1 

Kate found Mrs. Pendleton waiting for her in the house- 
keeper’s room, a little snuggery looking out on the back of the i 
house, towards the woods therefore, which came down to 
within a short distance of the mansion on that side, and towards 
the high forest-covered ground of Lindisfarn brow. So that 
on this side of the house the moaning and roaring of the storm- 
wind was yet more loudly heard than in front. But though 
the casements rattled and shook as if every now and then they 
were assailed by a sudden push from the outside, the little room 
was cheerful with a bright fire ; and Mrs. Pendleton had been 
already supplied with a steaming pot of tea, and a plate of 
bread and butter. 

“ Why, Winifred ! ” cried Kate, bursting into the room i 
through the door, much as the wind was striving to do at the | 
opposite window ; “ what in the world brings you up to the 
Chase on such a night as this ? What a walk you must have 
had!” 

“ ’Tis a’ terrible night. Miss Kate, sure enough ; not for 
them as is safe and snug on shore. I think nothing of the 
walk ; though the wind does blow off the brow up here enough 
to take one off one’s legs. But it must be an awful night at 
sea.” 

“ Where is Pendleton ? ” asked Kate. 

“ Over on the other side, and safe in harbour at this time, I 
hope, Miss Kate. But he’ll be coming across to-morrow night; 
and they won’t ask no better than a spell of the same weather ; 
for the night’s as dark as pitch, and they are not afeard of 
wind you know. Miss.” 

‘‘ It would be on the quarter in coming over, as the wind is 
now, would it not ? ” asked the young lady. 

“Yes, and that’s one of the lugger’s best points. Only 
there is a little too much of it. But if the wind lasts, or if 


LINDTSFAHN CHASE. 


187 


there is any wind at all that will any ways serve to make the 
coast with, they will be coming over to-morrow night, sure 
enough.” 

“Don’t you wish the job was done, and the lugger lying 
asleep under the Benniton Head rock, and Hiram safe and dry 
in the cottage ? ” 

“ Where’s the use of wishing, Miss Kate ? I might spend 
my life at it. When I was first married to a sailor — let alone 
one as the wind isn’t his worst trouble ! — I thought I’d never 
sleep through a dark night again, and felt every puff of wind 
as if the belaying pins were fixed in my heart. But one gets 
used to it. But I do wish, Miss Kate,” she added, looking with 
earnest eyes into Miss Lindisfarn’s face, “ that the job was over 
this time ! I do wish it ! ” 

“ Is it anything more than usual ? ” asked Kate, with a 
glance towards the door, and in a lower tone than before. 

“ Well, Miss Kate, to come out with it at once ; for I know 
we can trust you, and it’s over late now to begin having secrets 
between you and me ; that is what brings me up to Lindisfarn 
this night.” 

“ What do you mean, Winifred ? Is there any trouble ? ” 
asked Kate, in a smpathizing manner. 

“ I’ll tell you what it is. Miss Kate ; ” said the smuggler’s 
wife, who had thrown off her cloak, and rising to her feet as 
she spoke, came one step nearer to the spot at which Kate was 
standing at the opposite side of the housekeeper’s little tea- 
table, for she had not tak^n a seat on coming into the room ; 
“ I’ll tell you what it is, '*Iiss Kate. If I do not succeed in 
preventing it by my walk up here to-night, there will be trouble, 
as sure as the trees are troubling in the storm on Lindisfarn 
brow this night ! ” 

“ What can you mean, Winifred ? and what can your walk 
up here to-night have to do with it ? ” asked Kate, who was 
beginning to feel a little alarm at the woman’s manner. 

“It’s a big job that’s to come off to-morrow night. There’s 
some strange hands in it. The venture is as much as some on 
them is worth in the world. And Miss Kate,” added Winifred, 
; speaking in a solemn manner, and with special emphasis, while 
I she looked with a fixed and determined, but yet wistful glance 
i into Kate’s eyes, “ they don’t mean to be beat.” 

I “ I don’t understand you, Winifred ; ” returned Kate, while 
: a feeling of vague alarm rising gradually in her heart, and 
betraying itself in her manner, showed that she did partially 


188 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


understand the possible trouble to which Mrs. Pendleton was 
alluding’. 

‘‘ Miss Kate,” said she, still looking down from her some- 
what superior height into Kate’s eyes with the same fixed and 
meaning look, “ the men mean to bring the lugger in, and run 
the goods.” 

“In a dark night like this,” said Kate, “they will have 
a good chance of doing so, as they have had many a time 
before.” 

“ Ay, Miss Kate, please God they be not meddled with, the 
lugger will come in with the tide, while it is as dark as pitch, 
and all well. But it ’ill be bad meddling with them.” 

“And who should meddle with them ? ” said Kate, with a 
sudden feeling that Lady Farnleigh’s lightly-uttered words 
might have more meaning in them than she had thought of 
attributing to them. 

“ The revenue officers, to be sure. Miss ; and those as has the 
business to protect the revenue,” returned Mrs. Pendleton, 
shrewdly observing Kate’s face. 

“Well! and if the Saucy Sally — that was the name of 
Pendleton’s lugger — “ gets scent of anything hailing from the 
Custom House, she will show them a clean pair of heels, as she 
has so often done before ; ” said Kate. 

“ Ah, but the Saucy Sally don’t mean to do nothing of the 
kind this time. I tell you. Miss Kate, they mean to bring in 
their cargo whether or no ? ” 

“ How, whether or no ? If the revenue officers are on the 
look out, they must stand off and try another chance.” 

“But I tell you. Miss Kate, that is not what they mean. 
They mean to come in. If they can come in quiet, well. 
There’ll be a bit of bread for the wives and children, and 
nobody the worse or the wiser. But if they are meddled 
with, there’ll be trouble. That’s where it is,” said Mrs. 
Pendleton. 

“Why, you don’t mean to say, Winifred, that they would 
dream of open resistance to the King’s officers ? They could 
not be so mad ! ” 

“ I don’t know about mad. Miss Kate, but I zem I know 
which would be the maddest, them as is wishful to earn a bit 
of bread for their families, or them as poke their noses where 
they’ve no need, to hinder them. But you may rest sure. Miss, 
if the Saucy Sally is meddled with to-morrow night, there’ll bo 
trouble.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


189 


“But you must persuade your husband not to be so fool- 
, hardy, Mrs. Pendleton. I can hardly believe he can think of 
it.” said Kate. 

“ Persuade him ! How am I to persuade him — even putting* 
he was a man to mind a woman’s tattle in such matters — and 
he over in France ? Besides, it does not depend on him alto- 
i gether ; I said there were others in it. And zems to me. Miss 
I Kate, that you know enough of Hiram to judge, that if others 
Ij are for venturing a bold stroke, he i^ not the man to preach to 
[ij|them to hold their hands ! ” 

“I should hope, Winifred, that he was not a man to join in 
any violence, which might lead to dreadful consequences,” said 
Kate, with a painfully rising sense of the disagreeable possi- 
^ bilities that were beginning to loom above the horizon of her 
imagination. 

' “ Might lead ! ” cried Winifred Pendleton, with a look and 

an accent that were almost a sneer ; “ You don’t know what 
men are. Miss Kate ; let alone men such as they are, who have 
known what ’tis to have the law against ’em and not for ’em. 

: Law is a very good thing. Miss Kate, for them as has got all 
i they can wish for in this world. But Pendleton is not the man 
to stand by quiet, and see his own seized beneath his nose, not 
I if I know anything of him. No more ain’t those that are with 
: him.” 

; “ But, my dear Winifred, what is your object in telling me 

all this, except to frighten me and make me unhappy ? It 
could not be to tell me this that you have walked up from Sill- 
; mouth such a night as this ;” said Kate, becoming more and 
more uneasy, though she hardly knew, with any degree of 
(Precision, how what she heard could affect her. 
i “ I did walk up from Sillmouth a good eight miles to-night 
just on purpose to tell you this. Miss Kate,” said Mrs. Pendle- 
; ton, with the deliberate kind of manner of a person administer- 
jing a dose, and waiting to see the effect of it. 

I “ And what possible object could you have in doing so ? ” 

Ij asked Kate, looking at her in great surprise. 

‘I “I thought. Miss Kate, that maybe our hearts might pull 
)j the same way in this matter,” replied Mrs. Pendleton, dropping 
I the lashes over the fine but perhaps somewhat bold eyes, 
ilwith which she had been till now observing her quondam 
tj mistress. 

I “ Hearts pull the same way ! Of course they do ! You 
'i| know how dearly I have at heart all that interests you. But I 


190 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


* don’t understand you. You are not like yourself to-night. j,| 
You speak as if there was something behind that you arel[ 
afraid to tell me. Has anything happened ? ” ■! 

“No, Miss, no ! nothing have happened. But, my dear Miss!' 
Kate, don’t you know what is likely to happen, when men comelj 
to fighting ! If you don’t know, can’t you guess, what a i 
woman must feel when the father of her children is at that j 
pass, when, if it does come to a fight, it won’t end without lives 
lost?” ^ _ 

“ But), Gracious Heavens ! Winifred, why will your husband 

be so rash so mad? If you have no power to stop him,l, 

what is to be done? and what on earth did you propose to" 
yourself in coming here? If Papa could help, I am sure-.'! 
he would. If Hiram could be arrested and kept safe till 
this mad scheme is blown over — but you say he is over in ' 
France ? ” 

“ Yes, Miss, Pendleton is over the other side ; and I don’t 
think that any good could be done by arresting him, even if he ^ 
was here, thank you kindly, all the same ; ” said Winifred, 
casting down her eyes with a mock-demure look, that had a 
strong flavour of irony in it. “ Hiram is a bird of that sort, 
you see. Miss Kate,” she added, “as it don’t come easy putting 
salt on their tails. No, Miss Kate, if any good is to be done, 
it’s you that must do it. And it did come into my head — or 
into my heart more like — that you and I, Miss, might have 
pulled together in this bad business.” 

“ I help you ? and pull together ? What can you mean, ' 
Winifred? You have got something in your head. Why i 
don’t you speak it out plain ? You know you can trust me.” 

“ If I did not know that, I should not have said what I have 
said,” replied Mrs. Pendleton, looking full into Kate’s eyes with 
a steady and searching gaze. “ And I know well enough that 
if you could do a good turn to either me or mine, it isn’t a i 
little either of trouble or cost that would stand in the way. I 
know that. Miss Kate. Don’t you think I ever forget it, oij 
ever shall. But it isn’t trouble or cost that will serve the turn! 
to-night.” A 

She spoke these words simply and naturally ; and then hesi« 
tated, and once again cast her eyes down to the floor. After a l 
minute she went on, without raising them : — .w 

“It’s not to be thought, Miss Kate, that when men come to^ 
a desperate fight — and if there is a fight it will be a desperate ■ i 
one— the danger’s all on one side,” 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


193 


humble friend, that she did feel an interest in investigating 
li that part of the question. 

“ What business ? Well, I do believe that gentlefolk think 
that poor folk haven’t no eyes ! servants specially ; and they 
made of nothing else, as one may say ! Why, Miss Kate, do 
I you think that the sailors took no note of their Captain that 
time when the whole lot of you went for a cruise aboard the 
cutter ? There was no lack of other ladies aboard, and pretty 
ones too ; but there wasn’t a man or boy of the cutter’s crew, 
from that cross-grained old Joe Saltash, the mate, down to the 
cabin-boy, that could not see where the Captain took his sailing 
orders from, or who was Admiral on board. Bless you. Miss 
Kate, sailors have eyes ! ay, and tongues too ! How long do 
' you suppose the Petrel might be lying in Sillmouth Harbour, 
before it was all over Sillmouth that the Bevenue Captain 
I worshipped Miss Kate Lindisfarn’s shoe-tie ? Show his sense ! 

: the Sillshire folk say. And I suppose. Miss Kate — if I might 
venture to say it, without your eating me up alive for it, — that 
I you didn’t look at him as if you hated him ! ” 

Kate was blushing brightly as Mrs. Pendleton spoke, but she 
did not appear to be angry this time. 

I “ But even supposing,”, she said, “ that all this was true, 
instead of being the silliest nonsense that ever was talked, 
what would it avail towards preventing what you fear 
I to-morrow night, Mrs. Pendleton ? ” 

! “ Don’t call me Mrs. Pendleton, dear Miss Kate, please don’t, 

or I shall think you are still angry with me. How avail ? 

! Why, if what I have said was true, it wouldn’t be pleasant 
hearing for you to be told the first thing you open your eyes in 
■ the morning that Captain Ellingham’s body had been found 
I washed ashore during the pight, with a couple of pistol bullets 
I in it, and a gash over the forehead ! ’’ 

i “ Good Heavens, Winifred ! How can you talk in such a 
i way ? ” replied Kate ; and her cheek grew pale as she spoke. 

I “ Of course, it would be dreadful to hear it, whether all that 
I trash were true, or as false as it is.” 

I “ Well ! that’s what you are like enough to hear. Miss 
i Kate, if nothing is done to prevent it. And I don’t suppose 
' you’d think it was made much better, if you was told that 
i Hiram Pendleton’s corpse was lying stark on the sands as 
I well ! ” . 

j ‘‘ But what can possibly be done to prevent such horrors ? ” 
cried Kate, wringing her hands in distress. 


194 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE. 


“ Why ! where is the Captain now, at this present speaking ? ” 
said Mrs. Pendleton. 

“ Here at the Chase, in the house,’’ answered Kate. 

“ Ah, to be sure ! here at the Chase, a taking his wine com- 
fortably along with the Squire,” continued Mrs. Pendleton. 
‘‘And if he was a doing the same thing at the same hour 
to-morrow night, the Saucy Sally would have run her cargo 
before midnight, and no harm done to nobody in all the blessed 
world ! ” 

“But I know Captain Ellingham means to be off to Sill- 
mouth the first thing to-morrow morning,” returned Kate, 
shaking her head sadly. 

“ And how much trouble, I wonder, would it take them eyes 
of yours. Miss Kate, to make him change his mind, and stay at 
Lindisfarn ? ” said Mrs. Pendleton, looking wistfully into the 
eyes she spoke of. 

“ Ah ! ” cried Kate, blushing and drawing a long breath, as 
if she suddenly perceived for the first time the whole of Mrs. 
Pendleton’s drift and object in coming up to the Chase. “No, 
Mrs. Pendleton, that plan won’t do ! Even if I were to make 
the attempt, as you would have me, I could no more prevent 
Captain Ellingham from doing his duty than I could move 
Silverton Cathedral ! ” 

“ All nonsense, I beg your pardon. Miss Kate ; but you know i 
nothing about it. Many’s the better man than Captain Elling- I 
ham that has forgotten all about duty, as you call it, on a less 
temptation ! Am where’s the special duty of his going out i 
one particular night ? ” 

“ I am afraid,” returned Kate, thoughtfully, “ that he would 
not be here so quietly to-night, and intending to go out, as i 
I know he does, to-morrow night, if he had not some infor- 
mation.” 

“ God help him, then, and my husband, too ! They won’t 
both come ashore alive ! More likely neither of them ; and i 

God help me and my children! Miss Kate you could do 

this good job if you tried,” added Winifred, clasping her hands, 
and looking with wistful earnestness into Kate’s now painfully 
distressed face. She shook her head sorrowfully, but with a t 
severe expression on her features, as she said : — 

“ Nothing that I could do would produce the result you wish, i 
Mrs. Pendleton.” 

“Result I wish I Why, Great Heaven, Miss Kate, ’tis the I 
live^s of both of them ! Consider how you’ll think upon my j 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


195 


I words, when it is too late ! When the Captain’s body is picked 
off the sand and carried feet foremost, and the white face with 
the dripping black hair falling back from it, upwards to the 
' sunlight ; and my man is laid in his bloody coffin, and I am a 
broken-down and broken-hearted woman, without a bit of 
bread to put into my children’s mouths,” said Mrs. Pendleton, 
putting her handkerchief to her eyes ; “ you’ll say to yourself, 
Miss Kate, I did all that good work. I sent the Captain to his 
' fate, when I knew it was waiting for him. I brought Hiram 
Pendleton to his death ! ’Twas I that made Winifred, old 
John Parker’s daughter, a broken widow, and her children 
orphans ! I did it all, for I might have saved it all, and 

j wouldn’t ! Oh, Miss Kate, think, think of it ! What’s a bit 

; of a girl’s pride, or just a taste of a blush, maybe, making you 
j look more lovelier to him than you ever looked before — what’s 
this, I say, to men’s lives ? Think of it, for Heaven’s love, my 
dear Miss Kate! And don’t you go for to think that the 
King’s men are going to have it all their own way. I tell you 
that the chance is against them. Our fellows are a strong 
lot — some new hands, strangers, among them — and they 
, won’t make child’s play of it. As sure as Captain Ellingham 
I tries to stop the Saiicij Sally to-morrow night, he’s a dead 
man 1” 

Kate, whose distress had been rising to a pitch of agony 
I while Mrs. Pendleton had been speaking these words, remained 
I silent for awhile at the conclusion of them, while her working 
j features showed how great was the effect of* them upon her. 

“You do not know, my poor Winifred,” she said at length, 
‘‘you cannot guess how painful it will be to me, how much it 
costs me to make the application you urge me to do. But,” 
she added, while something that was almost a sob half choked 
her utterance, “ I will not, I dare not have it on my conscience 
that I have refused, in order to spare my own feelings, to make 
an attempt at averting these dreadful misfortunes. I will do 
as you would have me, my poor Winifred, though it is a hard, 
hard task. I must leave you now. Good night. Best your- 
self well before you start on your return ; and if you like, one 

of the men shall walk over with you or better still, I am 

sure Mr. Mat would let you have the gig.” 

“ God bless and reward you for your good deed. Miss Kate, 
and grant that you succeed ! ” said Winifred, with the tears in 

her eyes, “ and thank you kindly. Miss ; but I do not want 

any help to get homo. There’s not a foot of the ground 
13—2 


196 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


tliat I don’t know, better than e’er a man about the place ; and 
I’m no ways afraid of the walk.” 

“ Good night, then. It shall be done before he goes to- 
morrow,” said poor Kate ; in a tone which might have led a 
bystander to imagine, that the deed to be done was something 
of a very tragic nature indeed. 

And then she had to return to the drawing-room with as 
cheerful a face as she could manage ; fully purposed to do the 
spiriting which she had undertaken : but intending to set 
about it, as perhaps the reader need hardly be told, in a some- 
what different fashion from that contemplated by her ci-devant 
nurse. 


FND OF PAKT VI. 



LISDISFARN CHASE. 


197 


iPatt Sebauf). 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Kate’s attempt at bribery and corruption. 

• It was impossible for Kate to find any opportunity of 
making the contemplated attack on Captain Ellingham that 
evening. When she returned to the drawing-room, the gen- 
tlemen had come in from the dining-room, and were listening 
to a song by Miss Margaret. It was the celebrated air from 
Bobert le Biable that she was singing; and she sang it well 
and very effectively, but with that thin and qriarde voice, which 
French teaching and sentiment and practice seem always to 
produce, and with abundance — ill-natured or severe critics of 
the English school might perhaps have said, with too great 
abundance — of that dramatic effect, of which the song is so 
especially susceptible. It was Margaret’s favourite song and 
her main clieval de bataille, not only because it suited her voice, 
but also, as she would observe, with a very business-like appre- 
ciation of the subject in all its parts and bearings, because it 
suited her face and eyes. When she gave the “ Grace! grace! 
]ooior moi, pour toi!^^ with all that eyes as well as voice could 
do to emphasize the poet’s words and give irresistible force to 
the prayer, Kate could not help wishing that her sister had to 
make that appeal for, “ grace pour moi, pour toi” which it would 
be her task to make to-morrow morning to the man who was 
then listening to it. Captain Ellingham did listen to Margaret’s 
song with pleasure and interest ; keenly and critically, one 
would have said, to look at him, observing her the while, with 
a curious and slightly smiling expression of countenance. He 
applauded her at the conclusion of her song ; but he did not 
approach the piano, nor make any offer to turn over the leaves 


198 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


of her music-book. Fred Falconer was not there to hang* over 
her chair, and turn the eye part of the stage business into a 
duet with her. But Margaret was too well drilled and well 
educated a girl, not to do her work conscientiously and to the 
best of her power under all circumstances. The same spirit 
prompted her that moved the old mediosval artists to carve and 
finish cornice and moulding, even in parts which from their 
position could never meet the eye, as carefully as in those 
portions of the work which were destined to universal admi- 
ration. 

And then after Kate’s song, Mr. Mat sang his favourite 
“ Cease, rude Boreas,” which was assuredly appropriate enough 
to the occasion ; only Boreas did not cease by any means, but 
quite the contrary. 

And after that, Kate sang that pathetic old Sillshire ditty 
of the sad mutiny time, “ Parker was my lawful husband ! ” 
which, as Mr. Mat said, had the property of always compelling 
him to “make a fool of himself.” It was natural enough- that 
the matter of which Kate’s mind and heart were full, should 
have suggested to her memory that eloquent though homely 
lament of a wife sorrowing for a condemned and guilty hus- 
band. And if Kate had been an even permissibly artful girl, 
instead of the utterly unscheming and thoughtlessly open 
creature she was, it might be supposed that she had selected 
her song with a view to preparing Captain Ellingham’s heart 
for the assault to be made upon it. If she had had any such 
idea in her head, she might have fancied that her song had 
answered its end ; for she sang it with infinite pathos ; and the 
e3^es of the Commander of the Petrel did not remain any drier 
than Mr. Mat’s. 

And then came the time for the flat candlesticks and the 
good- nights. It was quite clear that nothing could be done in 
the matter that night. Kate had hardly supposed that there 
was any possibility of getting an opportunity before the morrow. 
Then she knew it would be easy enough. Only the deferring 
her hard, hard task till then, involved the suffering of a night 
of wakeful anxiety and thought. 

In the morning, it would be an easy matter to find an 
opportunity for a tete-a-tete with Captain Ellingham. He was 
to drive over to Silverton in the gig, starting from the Chase 
at eight in the morning, before the family breakfast hour. 
The same thing had occurred more than once before ; and 
Ellingham had declared that he did not want breakfast — 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


199 


always breakfasted later, — liked a drive or a walk before 
breakfast, — etc., etc. But it was in too violent contradiction 
with the habits and traditions of all Miss Immy’s life and ex- 
perience for this to be permitted ; and an early meal was on 
the table at half-past seven for the departing guest. Upon one 
I of these occasions Kate had come down to make Captain 
Ellingham’s breakfast for him ; and she felt that there would 
be nothing remarkable in her doing so now. Nevertheless, 
she seemed to herself a guilty thing, compassing some forbidden 
machination as she went down to the breakfast-room ; and she 
felt quite sure that her face was betraying the agitation of her 
mind. 

Of course, the reader does not imagine, as the pretty forest- 
er’s daughter imagined, that Kate had any intention of play- 
ing the Grce to Captain Ellingham, and seeking to detain him 
at Lindisfarn by the exercise of her fascinations upon him. 
Her plan, poor child ! involved a much greater degree of naive 
ignorance of the world and of things. The first scheme, as 
Winifred imagined it, would have been simply impossible of 
performance. Her own was infinitely distasteful to her. 

Captain Ellingham observed at once, as she entered the 
breakfast-room, that her look and bearing were not marked by 
her usual bright animation and cheerfulness. 

I am afraid, Miss Lindisfarn, you are not quite well this 
morning. If that is so, I should be so grieved to think that 
you had got up earlier than usual on my account,” said he. 

“I have had a restless night,” said Kate, in her direct and 
simple way, driving straightway at her object ; “ but it would 
have made the matter no better to have stayed in bed this 
morning ; for I have been kept awake by thinking of some- 
thing that I wanted to say to you before you went away to 
Silver ton.” 

“I should think myself most unfortunate,” replied Ellingham 
in much surprise, ‘‘ if any fault of mine can have made it neces- 
sary to say what is disagreeable to you.” 

“Oh no, indeed. Captain Ellingham. And yet it is very 
disagreeable to me to say what I must say. And nothing but 
a belief that it is my bounden duty not to shrink from doing 
so, would induce me to speak to you of it.” 

“ Be assured. Miss Lindisfarn,” rejoined he, speaking gravely, 
and in greater astonishment than ever, “that anythiug you 

wish to say to me will ” He was rather at a loss how’ to 

proceed, but after a moment’s hesitation, continued, “be 


200 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


listened to by me in whatever manner and frame of mind yon 
may wish me to hear it.” 

“ Thank you, Captain Ellingham. I was sure you would be 

kind about it, whether you may think it right to to act in 

one way or another,” said Kate, feeling some little comfort 
from the consciousness that she had surmounted the difficulty 
of beginning, but still very nervous. 

“I feel sure that I shall think it right to do what you think 
it right to wish me to do. Miss Lindisfarn,” said he, still speak- 
ing seriously, and it seemed to her ear at the moment, she 
fancied, somewhat coldly. It was impossible that her overture 
could have been received more courteously. Still it seemed to 
her as if his grave seriousness opened her eyes yet more than 
they had been before to the gravity of the matter she had to 
communicate to him. 

“ I hope so. For indeed, indeed Captain Ellingham, nothing 
would have induced me to speak to you on such a matter, 
except a feeling that I should have been acting wrongly in not 
doing so.” 

And as she spoke, poor Kate felt that her agitation was 
increasing, — that the tears were rising in her throat, and that 
she could with difficulty prevent them from brimming over at 
her eyes. 

“What is the nature of the business ? ” said he, in a softer 
and kinder voice ; for he perceived her distress. 

“ Is it not part of your duty here. Captain Ellingham, to 
prevent the smugglers from from doing their smuggling?” 

“That is not only a part, but I may say, pretty well the 
whole of my duty on the Sillshire coast. It is for that purpose 
that the Petrel is here,” replied he, smiling, and somewhat re- 
lieved at this discovery of the nature of the subject in hand, 
though still as much surprised as ever. 

“ And the government tries, I know, always to take away 
from them the things they want to smuggle ? ” said Kate. 

“ Tries to ! I am afraid Miss Lindisfarn, you Zillshire volk, 
as Mr. Mat says, don’t always wish us Revenue officers all the 
success we deserve, and are apt to laugh at us when we don’t 
succeed. Yes, the Government tries to take away all smuggled 
goods, as you say ; and tries its best, though it does not always 
succeed,” said the Commander of the Petrel, becoming still 
more at his ease respecting Kate’s business. 

“Yes, I know. They try to hide the things and you try 
to find them. If they succeed, they sell them at a good profit; 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


201 


and if you succeed, they lose them, and I don’t suppose the 
King is much the richer.” 

“ Ah ! Miss Lindisfarn, I am afraid it’s too clear on which 
side your sympathies are,” cried Ellingham, laughing. 

“ But it cannot be the intention of the King, or the Govern- 
ment,” continued Kate, without manifesting the least inclina- 
tion to share her companion’s cheerfulness ; “it cannot be their 
wish for the sake of a few yards of silk, or a little tobacco, to 
take away or even to risk human life.” 

“Ah, my dear Miss Lindisfarn,” returned he, reverting at 
once to all his previous seriousness of manner, and beginning 
' to have some inkling of a suspicion of what sort the business 
in hand might be, “ I am afraid you hardly see the matter in 
I its right light. The Government assuredly has no wish to take 
away men’s lives, as you say; but law must be enforced, and 
its supremacy indicated at all hazards and at all cost, — at all 
costs, you understand me ? ” 

“ I understand, of course,” said Kate, whose misgivings as to • 
the success of her enterprise were already beginning to be in- 
creased by the tone and scope of Captain Ellingham’s words ; 

“ I understand that if you catch the men in the act of smug- 
j gling, you must prevent them ; you cannot let them carry their 
I plans into effect. That would be too much to expect,” — (a 
smile passed over the Revenue officer’s face, as she said these 
j words ;) — “but if it were known beforehand, that a lamentable 
sacrifice of life would be the certain result of interfering with 
the smugglers in any particular case, surely it would be right 

and humane and best in all ways to to to 

avoid such a misfortune ; ” and Kate, as she came near the end 
of her little speech, had clasped her hands, partly in sheer 
nervousness, and partly from an unreasoned impulse of suppli- 
cation, while she gazed with wistful and now palpably tearful 
eyes into his face. 

Captain Ellingham dropped his before her gaze, and remained 
silent for some seconds. Then looking up at her with a full 
and frank glance, and speaking very kindly and gently, but 
still gravely, though with a quiet smile, he said : 

“ I am very much afraid, my dear Miss Kate,” — (it was the 
first time during the interview that he had called her so, and 
Kate felt grateful for the friendliness implied in that manner 
of address ;) — “ I am very much afraid that you have engaged 
in an attempt to induce an officer in His Majesty’s service to 
act in gross violation of his duty ; — a high crime and misde- 


202 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


meanonr, Miss Kate ! ” he added, while he allowed the kindly 
smile to temper the severity of the words. “ I am quite sure,’’ 
he continued, with more entire seriousness, “that you would 
not, as you said, have spoken to me on this matter if you had 
not thought it right. I feel sure, too, that I may safely adhere 
to what I said just now; — that I shall think it right to do, 
what you think it right to wish me to do, — after a little re- 
flection. Consider, Miss Lindisfarn, what the result would be, 
if smugglers were allowed to effect their purpose whenever 
they chose to say that they would use violence in carrying it 
out if necessary. Why, your good sense will show you in an 
instant, that not a yard or a pound of goods that came into the 
kingdom would pay duty. The Custom-house might shut up 
shop, and the Government might whistle for the revenue. I 
am sure you must see this. If these men resort to violence, 
and if life be lost in enforcing the law, their blood will be on 
their own head. Unless they use violence, no greater mis- 
fortune can ensue than the capture of their goods, and them- 
selves.” 

“ But they ivill use violence, deadly violence ! They are des- 
perate men,” cried Kate, wringing her hands. “ Can nothing 
be done to prevent bloodshed ? ” 

“My dear Miss Kate,” said Ellingham, while the genial 
smile came back again to his features, “ I am very much afraid 
that you know more about these desperate men than you ought 
to know ! As for what can be done to prevent bloodshed, — it 
is very simple. The desperate men have nothing to do but to 
take to an honest calling, or at all events, to steer clear of the 

Petrel, which I tell you frankly, I think they will find it 

difficult to do ! ” 

“But I must not betray them,” cried Kate, while a new 
terror rushed into her mind ; “ at all events, it cannot be right 
for me to betray them ! ” 

“ Certainly not ; you have betrayed nobody, and you shall 
betray nobody. To show you how little there is you could 
betray, let me ask you, — without wishing for any answer 
though, — whether your conversation with me this morning is 
not the result of one you had last night with a certain Mrs. 
Pendleton in the housekeeper’s room ? Oh 1 I am no eaves- 
dropper,” he continued, as the blood rushed into Kate’s face ; 
“but Lady Farnleigh mentioned in the drawing-room the 
purpose for which you had left the room. She told me, too, 
all the good reason you have for being warmly interested in 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


203 


and attached to your old nurse. But it is Mrs. Pendleton’s 
misfortune to be the wife of perhaps the most dangerous and 
determined smuggler on all the coast. We have long had our 
eyes upon his movements. Come ! I don’t mind playing with 
my cards on the table ; and so far giving the fellow a chance 
i of avoiding bloodshed if he chooses to profit by it. We have 
information that the Saucy Sally is to run over from the other 
side to-night ; we know all about it. And, as sure as fate, if 
she attempts it, she will fall into our hands ; and if the men 
are rash enough to make a fight of it, they must take the con- 
sequences.” 

“ It is very, very dreadful,” said Kate, wringing her hands 
in great distress. “ I know they mean to fight desperately.” 
i “And would Miss Lindisfarn, after telling me that fact, 
propose to me to keep purposely out of the way of this very 
desperate gentleman ? ” said Captain Ellingham, looking with 
a fixed and almost reproachful gaze into Kate’s eyes, while a 
slight flush came over his brown cheek. 

“ I was told a great deal,” said Kate, and the sympathetic 
blood i*ushed, as she spoke, all over her own face and forehead, 
“ about the danger that the King’s officer might run as well 
; as the smugglers. But, of course, I knew that was a part of 

! the subject on which it was no use to speak to you, however 

painful a consideration it may be to others,” she added hurriedly 
i and in a lower voice, dropping her eyes as she did so. 

I “ Thank you. Miss Lindisfarn ! ” said Ellingham shortly, 

' giving her a little sharp nod as he spoke. “ But supposing I 
I had kept out of the way when a dangerous duty was to be 
i done ? ” 

“ Kobody in the world would have supposed,” replied Kate, 

I speaking rapidly, with a sort of angry defiance in her manner, 

I and looking up while the blush returned again to her cheeks, 
i “ that Captain Ellingham was moved by any consideration save 
I that of sparing others.” 

i Ellingham bowed slightly; and his own colour went and 
came in rapid alternation. “I could not count, I am afraid,” 
he said, “ on all the world taking so favourable a view of such 
conduct as you might be kind enough to adopt. At all events,” 
he continued, speaking in a more simple and business-like tone, 
“ putting all such personal considerations out of the question, 
this is simply a matter of duty, which must be done as such. 
I am sure that you must now see, my dear Miss Kate, that any 
alternative is wholly out of the question. Perhaps,” he added, 


204 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


again changing his manner, “ I need hardly say, that if this 
were a matter in which any earthly consideration could induce 
me to act differently from the course I proposed to follow, I 
should deem it the greatest happiness to be guided by your 
wishes. But duty must be done. And I have, at all events, 
the consolation of being sure that in doing mine, I shall have 
Miss Lindisfarn’s well-considered approbation.” 

“ Alas ! yes ! I cannot say that it is not so. And I fear I 
have only done mischief and not good by my interference,” 
said poor Kate, with a dejected sigh. 

“Nay, not so at all,” replied Ellingham. “All this fellow 
Pendleton’s movements were known to me, as I told you. We 
should have been on the look-out for him to-night, at all events. 
On the contrary, I have stretched a point in favour of your 
]proteges, Miss Lindisfarn ; ” (the bright arch smile again here ;) 
— “ I give them the advantage of knowing that they are ex- 
pected. You may communicate the intelligence to them, and 
let them profit by it to keep out of my way, if they like ; I 
assure you I am showing them a favour rarely practised by an 
ofiicer of the Bevenue service ! ” 

“ But the men are on the other side of the water, in Prance ! ” 
said Kate. . 

“I know that, of course. But these people have always 
codes of signals, and means of warning their friends. Without 
that, they would never beat us, as they do sometimes. Let 
your friend, Mrs. Pendleton, be told that the Petrel is wide 
awake. She will know very well how to m.ake use of the in- 
formation. And now, my dear Miss Lindisfarn, it is time for 
me to be off. A thousand thanks for your kindness and hospi- 
tality ! I wish I could have pleased you better in this affair. 
Good-bye.” 

“ Good-bye, Captain Ellingham ! I do know that you are 

doing right ; and that it was very wrong and very silly 

in in anybody to try to make you do otherwise ; ” stammered 

Kate, as she gave him her hand. 

And so the gig rattled off with Captain Ellingham, who 
somehow or other was in particularly high spirits during his 
little journey to Sillmouth, and felt as if he would not have 
the fact of his morning’s tete-d4eie breakfast cancelled, or the 
remembrance of it obliterated from his mind for all the Saucy 
Sallies that ever skulked into a port. 

And somehow or other, more strangely still, Kate, though 
her enterprise had so signally failed, and though she was very 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


205 


painfully apprelieiisive of whafc tlie coming nighfc might bring 
forth, caught herself to her own considerable surprise, looking 
back with a feeling of pleasure on certain passages of that 
abortive attempt at bribery and corruption, to which she had 
looked forward with such unfeigned terror. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

hate's EIDE TO SILLMOUTH. 

The pleasure, vivid as it was, with which Kate recalled 
certain words, and tones, and looks of that breakfast-table 
tete-cb-tSte conversation, had to be put away in a cupboard of her 
mind, marked “ Private ! the public are not admitted here ” — 
for future use. The more pressing business of the moment 
was to put, to whatever use it might haply serve, the informa- 
tion which Captain Ellingham had given her leave to convey 
to the smugglers. It would have been necessary, indeed, in 
any case, to give Winifred tidings of the result of her con- 
versation with the Commander of the Petrel. So as soon as 
the family breakfast was over, Kate followed Mr. Mat out to 
the stable-yard, where his miscellaneous duties of the day 
generally began, and asked him if he could manage to ride 
over to Sillmouth with her. 

“ I must see Winny Pendleton this morning, Mr. Mat," said 
Kate. “ I am afraid there is likely to be bad work to-night 
between Pendleton’s boat and the Revenue cutter." 

“ Was that what Winny was up here about last night ? " 
asked Mr. Mat. 

“ Just that, poor soul ! It seems that her husband has got 
other men associated with him worse than himself, and that 
they are determined to fight with the Revenue men, if they are 
meddled with. Winny wanted me to persuade Captain Elling- 
ham to keep out of the way of the Saucy Sally. Of course, it 


206 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


was impossible for him to think of doing* anything of the kind ; 
and I have sad misgivings something bad will happen to- 
night.’* 

“ Is Pendleton going to run over to night ? ” asked Mr. Mat. 

“ Yes. That was what Winny told me. And I know the 
Petrel will be on the lookout for him. Oh, Mr. Mat, it’s a bad 
business. I wish to Heaven, poor Winny had never married 
that man ! ” 

“ Ah ! It’s too late wishing about that now. She has made 
her bed, and must lie on it. And there are worse fellows of his 
sort than Pendleton is,” said Mr. Mat. 

“ Can you ride over with me this morning to Sillmouth, Mr. 
Mat ? I must see her, though I have nothing to teU her to 
comfort her, poor soul ! ” 

“ Of course. Miss Kate, I’ll go with you. I’ll have the mare 
and Birdie saddled directly.” 

So Kate and Mr. Mat made their way to Sillmouth, and then 
galloped over the two miles of fine sands which lie between 
that port and the rocks, but rise from the water’s edge immedi- 
ately beyond Deep Creek, from the bank of which little gaily 
a pretty zigzag path leads to a sheltered nook of flat ground, 
about half way up the cliff, on which the smuggler’s cottage 
was built. It was niched in so close to the face of rock rising 
above it, and so far back, therefore, from the edge of the 
precipice below it, that it was barely visible from below ; and 
ifc would hardly have entered into the imagination of a stranger 
to the spot, when on the shore below, that there was a human 
habitation half way between him and the top of the cliff above 
him, had not the little zigzag path unobtrusively suggested that 
it must lead to something. 

The path was hardly practicable for horses ; and though 
Kate had frequently protested that she was sure that Birdie 
would carry her up safely, Mr. Mat had always utterly set his 
face against any such attempt. The usual practice, therefore, 
was — if neither of Winny Pendleton’s children could be seen, 
as was often the case, playing on the sea-shore — for Kate to 
hold Mr. Mat’s horse while he went up to the cottage and sent 
down one of the boys to relieve her of it and of Birdie. 

On the present occasion this was not necessary, for Winny 
had been anxiously on the lookout for a visit from the Chase ; 
and on the first appearance of Kate and Mr. Mat on the sands 
below, had sent down one of her sons to bold their horses foi’ 
them. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 207 

They found her in a great state of anxiety and agitation ; 
and, as we know, they had no comfort to offer her. 

‘‘ God help them. Miss Kate ! ” said the poor wife, sitting 
down in the darkest corner of her little parlour, and putting 
up her apron to her eyes ; “ God help them ! and I say it for 
one side as well as for the other. It will be a bad and a black 
night for some of us.’^ 

“ But why not take advantage, Winny, of the information I 
am permitted to give ? urged Kate. “ Captain Ellingham 
says that you have the means of letting the men know their 
danger by signals, or in some way, and that you can warn them 
off the coast. Why not do so ? ” 

“ It’s not information I wanted from the King’s officer, any 
more than he wanted it from me,” said the smuggler’s wife, 
almost with a sneer. “ If he knows what we’re doing, we 
know what he’s doing. The men are quite aware that the 
cutter will be on the watch for them. That’s why they’re 
determined to fight ! ” 

“ But if they could be warned and not attempt to get in 
to-night, they might find a time when the cutter is off its 
guard,” urged Kate. 

“ ’Tisn’t so easy to catch Captain Ellingham off his guard. 
That’s why we are driven to fight for it. Our men are peace- 
able enough. They don’t want to make any mischief. If they 
can anyways get in to-night without striking a blow, they will. 
And they’ll have all the information of the cutter’s movements 
that can be given them. But oh. Miss Kate, he is a difficult 
one to deal with, and I’m sore, sore afraid that bad will come 
of it.” 

“ I did all I could for you, Winny,” said Kate sadly. “ I 
will still hope that in the dark night they may slip in without 
being seen. We must go now. Of course, I would tell you the 
upshot of the promise I gave. And, Winny,” added Kate, as 
she turned to leave the cottage, while the consciousness that 
the words she was about to speak did not tell the whole or 
even the main part of the truth, caused her to blush all over 
her face; “ of course, I shall be very anxious to hear your news 
of the night. If, as please God it will yet be, all is well, come 
up yourself to the Chase. If anything,” she added, putting an 
emphasis on the any, “ should happen, don’t fail to send up 
a messenger the first thing. He shall be well paid for his 
trouble.” 

So Kate and her companion mounted their horses at the 


208 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


bottom of the path, and turned their heads homewards. That 
two-mile reach of sands between Sillmouth and Deep Creek 
was such a well-established and sure bit of galloping ground 
for the two riders, that Birdie and Mr. Mat’s mare laid their 
ears back and started off as usual as soon as ever their riders 
were on their backs, without waiting for whip or spur. But it 
is probable that if they had not done so, they would have been 
allowed to traverse the ground at a listless walk. For neither 
Kate nor Mr. Mat were in a very blithe frame of mind. Kate 
was miserable, probably for the first time in her life ; and she 
was surprised to find how completely her unhappiness seemed 
to make even her limbs listless and unfit for their usual work. 
For the first time in her life, a gallop on the Sillmouth sands 
seemed to have lost for her its invigorating tonic, and inspirit- 
ing efficacy. 

They neither of them spoke as long as the gallop lasted, but 
when they drew up at the entrance of the little fishing town, 
through which they had to ride before reaching the road lead- 
ing along the bank to the estuary of the Sill to Silverton 
bridge, Kate pointed with her whip to a tall sail far out in the 
offing, as she said sadly; “There’s the cutter. Would she 
were back in harbour again ! Is it not dreadful, Mr. Mat? 
Think of that poor woman, with her children in the cottage 
there, waiting for the chances of the night, watching the 
movements of that ship, and knowing that it is bent on the 
destruction of her husband ; knowing that he is braving 
mortal peril in the pursuit of a livelihood for her and her 
children. What is to become of them if the chance goes 
against him?” 

And the words as she uttered them suggested to her mind 
the possible alternative ; and Winifred’s words of the pre- 
ceding evening recurred to her, — those words which had made 
her so angry : — “ There’s others besides wives may chance 
to get broken hearts from to-morrow night’s work !” She 
clearly admitted to herself that Winifred spoke the truth; — 
henceforward — since that conversation of the morning, Kate 
said to herself ; but that was, it may be believed, an error ; — 
there could be at all events, however, no mistake and no self- 
deception any longer on that points Yes 1 that night’s work 
might bring a broken heart to another as well as to Winifred 
Pendleton. But Kate did not render to her own mind a full 
and consistent account of all the feelings that moved her to 
add — as she looked out wistfully to the sea where the large 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


209 


white sails of the cuttei’ were showing themselves clearly 
marked against the heavy dun clouds of the horizon : — 

“ I suppose that there is but little hope for smugglers in a 
struggle with the King’s officers, Mr. Mat ? The chances 
must be all against them?” 

“ Why, yes ! ’tis to be thought they must be ; but there’s 
this, you know. The King’s officers are no ways desirous 
of taking life if they can help it. They would rather bring 
their men in prisoners, if they can any way manage it. But 
with the smugglers, mind you, it is different. They are fighting 
with desperation and hate and rage in their hearts. There’s 
no taking prisoners with them ; it’s down with you, or down 
with me. And there’s the thought, that if they are taken 
prisoners ’twill go worse with them than if they are killed 
in the fight, and get all their troubles over at once. All this, 
you see. Miss Kate, makes a fight with the smugglers a 
desperate and chancy piece of business.” 

Kate turned pale as she listened to this exposition of a 
Bevenue officer’s dangers ; which Mr. Mat would have spared 
her, if he had any notion that his words were falling on her 
heart with the numbing effect of ice-drops. Observing, how- 
ever, as they stopped to pay the turnpike, which is just outside 
Sillmouth, on the Silverton road, how pale she was, Mr. Mat 
endeavoured to draw some encouragement from the signs of 
the weather. 

“ It is as likely as not,” said he, that there may be no 
mischief after all ! It’ll be just such another night as last 
night — as dark as pitch. The wind is getting up already, and 
look at that bank of black clouds out seawards. A dark night 
and a capful of wind, those are the smugglers’ friends ! And 
I should not be a bit surprised if the Saucy Sally were to slip 
in, and get her cargo well up the country before they can 
catch her.” 

“ God grant it ; ” cried Kate fervently ! and a more piously 
earnest prayer for the success of a lawless enterprise against 
all law and order was never breathed. 

“At what time do you think we might get news of the 
upshot, whatever it may be, up at the Chase, Mr. Mat ? ” asked 
Kate, after they had ridden awhile in silence. 

“As soon as ever there is any of us stirring, if Winifred 
sends off a messenger at once. There is a little bit of a late 
moon; and it will all be over, one way or the other, before 
that rises. I should think Winny might send off somebody 
14 


210 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


by four o’clock, and then we should get the news up to Lindis- 
farn by return. They’ll be up and stirring in the cottage 
yonder all night, never fear ! ” 

“ You will be on the lookout, Mr. Mat, I daresay ; ” said 
Kate again, after another long spell of silence between the 
riders ; “ for you are as fond of poor Winifred as any of 
us. Would you come and tell me in my room, as soon as 
you have heard anything. You will find me up and dressed.” 

“ Sure I will Kate ! sure I will ! And I’ll be on the 
lookout, never fear ! ” replied Mr. Mat, who, if he had been 
a less thoroughly simple and unsuspicious creature, might 
have been led by the somewhat overdone hypocrisy with 
which Kate affected to limit her anxiety to the fate of Winny 
Pendleton, and by her desire to receive the tidings in the 
privacy of her own room, to the spot in Kate’s heart where 
her secret was hidden away from all eyes. It is just so that 
a silly bird, which has made its nest in the grass, indicates the 
whereabouts of it to her enemies, by her anxious flutterings 
to and fro about the spot. 

The remainder of the ride up to the Chase was passed 
in silence. And then Kate spent the rest of the hours before 
dinner-time in strolling out alone, to the top of Lindisfarn 
brow. She was too restless to be able to remain quietly 
at home; she wanted to be alone, and she turned her steps 
through the fine old woods to the crest of the hill, that she 
might the better scan the signs of the weather. 

In that department the promise of the coming night was 
all that she could wish. The breeze was rapidly rising ; and 
though Kate was not enough of a sailor to know whether 
the wind, which was careering so wildly over Lindisfarn brow, 
and making the old woods groan, and sough and sway to and 
fro, like a mourner in the excess of his grief, was a good wind 
for the run from the opposite coast to that of Sillshire, she was 
quite sure that there would be enough of it out at sea ; and 
she gathered some comfort from the reflection that if the wind 
did not serve to blow the Saucy Sally at the top of her speed 
into safety, it might be sufficiently strong in the opposite 
direction to prevent her from running into danger. And 
the night promised to be not only wild, but “dirty,” as 
sailors graphically call it, and as dark as the most desperate 
doers of deeds that shun the light could desire. Great mas- 
sive banks of heavy clouds were heaving themselves up with 
sullen majesty from the seaward horizon, rearing themselves 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


. 211 


into tlie semblance of great black cliffs and rocks, varying 
the outline of tbeir fantastic forms continually, as the storm- 
wind drove them, but steadily coming onwards and upwards 
towards the zenith. Once or twice, as Kate looked out from 
the vantage ground of a rocky ridge, which topped Lindisfarn 
brow, and raised its naked and lichen grown head among' 
the surrounding woods, the sky to seaward, and the cloud- 
banks were lit up momentarily by sharp flashes of forked 
lightning, — not the playful, hovering, dallying, illuminating 
summer lightning of southern climates, with its manifold tints 
of every hue, from that of red-hot iron to violet, but sharply 
drawn, vicious looking dartings of Are, dividing the black 
clouds like the lines of cleavage in a crystal. And before 
she had returned to the house, the big rain drops had begun to 
patter like the dropping shots of distant musketry among the 
leaves far overhead. 

It was as Mr. Mat had said, just such another night as the 
last had been ; only that the equinoctial storm seemed to 
have gathered additional strength and fury from its lull 
during the daylight hours. And Kate, as she lay awake 
during the interminable seeming hours of that long night, 
listening to the noises of the tempest, devoutly hoped, that 
the war which those, who were occupying their business in 
the great waters, must needs wage with the elements, would 
avail to prevent a more disastrous and dangerous warfare 
between man and man. 

Towards morning the wind fell, and a pale, watery-looking" 
beam from the feeble crescent of a waning moon, came timidly 
and sadly wandering over earth and sea, as a meek and 
sorrowing wife may creep forth at daybreak to look on the 
home-wreck that has been caused by the orgy of the pre- 
ceding night. But Kate said to herself, that the night’s work, 
whatever might have been its result, was done by that time ! 
As she thought what that might be, which that sad, colourless 
moon-beam had to look down on at that hour, a cold chill 
seemed to dart through her heart. Sleep had not come near 
her while the storm had lasted ; but now, while she was count- 
ing the weary hours that must elapse before she could receive 
the tidings that the morning would bring her, she fell asleep. 






212 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


! 


CHAPTER XX. 


DEEP CREEK COTTAGE. 


When Kate opened her eyes on the following morning, a ray 
of bright sunshine was finding its way into her room between 
the imperfectly closed shutters ; and it was a minute or two 
before her waking senses could establish the connection between 
the dreary sounds and thoughts, which had occupied her last 
conscious moments, and the cheerful brightness that wooed her 
waking. She was soon recalled, however, to all the cares and 
troubles from which she had escaped for a few hours ; for 
Simmons was standing by her bedside with a folded note in 
her hand. 

‘‘What time is it, Simmons? late surely?’’ she asked 

hurriedly, as she remembered the anxieties of the hour. 

“Xo, Miss ; not late! but please. Miss, Mr. Mat told me to 
wake you if you was not awake yet, and to give you this note. 
Miss, as a boy from Sillmouth has brought up this morning.” 

“Just open the shutters, Simmons,” said Kate, striving to 
speak in her ordinary manner, while a cold spasm clutched her 
heart. “ Give me the note, and then run down, there’s a good 
girl, and tell Mr. Mat that I am going to get up directly,” she 
added, anxious to obtain a moment’s unobserved privacy for 
reading the dreaded tidings. 

The note, written by Winifred, who, among other accom- 
plishments acquired during her residence at the Chase, 
possessed that of a very tolerable penmanship, ran as follows : 

“Mt dearest young Lady, 

“ Thanks be to God, things is not so bad as they med have 
been, though there’s trouble enuff and like enuff to be more of 
it in store. The Revnew cutter chased the Saucy Sally ; but it 
blowed great guns all night, and Hiram says there ain’t no 
Revnew craft on the water as can overhaul the Saucy Sally in 
such whether as last night. The cutter is back in harbour 
again this morning, I hear, and job enough they had to get her 
there. The Saucy Sally come into the Creek like a bird, and 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


218 


though I says it as may be shouldn’t, there isn’t many sailors 
afloat or ashore neither as would have brought her in the way 
Hiram did. But there’s neither fair play nor honour among 
them Custom-house folk. When the cutter saw how the game 
was, and found out that it wasn’t none so easy to put salt on 
the tale of the Saucy Sally, they burnt blew lights and fired 
signal guns to the Coast-guard lubbers on shore, and jest as 
the men was a getting out the cargo comfortable and up the 
I cliffs, down comes a party of the King’s men, and there was a 
fight — more’s the pity ! It wasn’t our men’s fault. And the 
Coast-guarders was beat off, and the cargo safe up the country. 
But too of their men was carried off, badly hurt. And too 
was hurt on our side simily. Hiram was one, as he is sure to 
take the biggest share, when there’s blows a going. But his 
hart ain’t nothing to signify much, God be praised ! And 
then comes the worst at the last, as it generally do. The 
other man hurt was a stranger as took on with Pendleton in 
Prance. Him and Pendleton was both brought into the 
cottage ; and the frenchman I am sadly afeared has got his 
death. And to make it worse he can’t speak a word of 
English, and what in the world am I to do ? My dearest 
Miss Kate if you would, you and Mr. Mat, have the great 
kindness and charity to ride over and look in. Somebody 
ought to speak to this poor frenchman, and he a dying, as I 
am sorely afeared. The men are all away with the things up 
the country, and the place is as quiet as if there was not such 
a thing as a pound of contraband baccy in all creation. 
Pendleton is not here, no one but this poor frenchman. For 
Hiram and the rest of the men must take to the Moor for a 
spell. And so, my dear young lady if you would look in, you 
would do a Christian charity to this poor frenchman, a dying 
without opening his mouth to a human sole, and a loving 
kindness to your faithful and dewtiful old servant to command, 

“WiNiFEED Pendleton. 

P.S. Pray du ! there is a dear, good young lady, my 
dear Miss Kate. With speed.” 

Kate read this letter with feelings of the most heartfelt 
relief. And when she reached the conclusion of Winifred’s 
story, she may be held excusable if the ill-news contained in it 
was not sufficient to throw any very extinguishing wet-blanket 
upon the great gladness which the former part of the letter 


214 


LINDISFAM CHASE* 


had caused her. She was very sorry for the unfortunate 
Erenchraan ; but if he would needs thrust himself where he 
had so little business to be, what could he expect; and it was, 
at all events, a comfort, that if the protection of the King’s 
revenue required him to be killed, the captain and crew of the 
Petrel had had nothing to do with the killing of him. 

Kate was, however, in a mood to do anything in her power 
for any human being, especially for her old favourite Winny; 
— which amounts indeed to little more than saying that she 
was herself again. She determined, if she could induce Mr. 
Mat to consent, of which she had never very much doubt, let 
the matter in hand be what it might, to ride over again the 
same ground she had traversed the day before, immediately 
after breakfast ; and she pleased herself with thinking what a 
different ride it would be from that of yesterday. 

She showed Winifred’s note to Mr. Mat, who had already 
learned from the bearer of it the general upshot of the night’s 
work, — that the Smcmj Sally had landed her cargo ; that the 
smugglers had escaped from the pursuit of the cutter, but had 
been attacked by a party of Coast-guardmen on land ; that two 
of the latter and two of the former party had been hurt ; that 
one of these was Hiram Pendleton, but that his wound was of 
no great consequence, and that he had been able to escape to 
the moor with the rest of the men implicated in the affair. 
Mr. Mat had heard nothing of the other wounded man ; and 
when he learned the nature of the case from Kate, he expressed 
his thankfulness for the providential dispensation which had 
ordained that the principal sufferer should be a Frenchman, 
but at the same time assented to Kate’s proposition that it 
would be but an act of common charity to see what could be 
done for the wounded man, though decidedly resenting and 
repudiating Kate’s mention of him as a fellow-creatureP 

So Birdie and Mr. Mat’s mare were saddled after break- 
fast, and again found themselves, after a quicker and a brisker 
ride than that of yesterday, at the foot of the little zigzag 
path which led to the smuggler’s cottage. 

There was no need for Mr. Mat to go up first ; for both 
Winifred’s boys had been on the look-out for their arrival, as 
Mrs. Pendleton had had very little doubt that her letter would 
avail to bring Kate thither very shortly. The good dame 
herself was waiting for them at the top of the path, and 
poured forth her thanks for their prompt acquiescence in her 
prayer. 


LINDISFATiN CHASE. 


215 


“ No ! he IS alive/’ said she, in reply to Kate’s first hurried 
question ; “ he is alive ; but I am afeared he won’t last long ; 
he is a deal weaker than he was when he was brought in. 
And doctor says he can’t live. I am so thankful you have 
come, Miss Kate.” 

“ Could not the doctor speak to him in his own lingo ? ” 
asked Mr. Mat. 

“ What, old Bagstock, the doctor to Sillmouth ? Not he ! 
not a word, no more than I can. But I’ll tell’ee. Miss Kate, 
I’ve a notion the man understands what is said in English, 
though he won’t let on to talk it.” 

‘‘ Ah ! like enougli, like enough ! They are a queer set,” 
said Mr. Mat. 

“Would you please to come in and see him. Miss?” asked 
Winifred ; for the preceding conversation had taken place in 
the little bit of flower-planted space at the top of the zig-zag 
path, between the edge of the cliff and the cottage. 

“ Yes ! I will go in with you,” said Kate ; “ but I was think- 
ing, Winny, that any way the poor man ought to have some 
better advice than old Mr. Bagstock. I would not trust a sick 
dog in his hands.” 

“ It needs a deal of skill to cure a sick dog,” said Mr. 
Mat ; “ because they can’t speak to you,^ to tell you what is 
the matter with them. And a Frenchman is all the same for 
the same reason. Go in to him, Kate ; you can speak to him. 
For my part. I’ll stay here ; I should be no use.” 

And so saying, Mr. Mat sat himself down in a summer- 
house in Mrs. Pendleton’s garden, constructed of half an old 
boat, set on end on its sawed-off part, and richly overgrown 
with honeysuckle, — a fragrant seat, commanding a look-out 
over coast and sea that many a garden-seat in lordly demesnes 
might envy ; — and having comfortably established . himself 
there, drew from his pocket a supply of tobacco, and the small 

instrument needed for the enjoyment thereof (for Mr. Mat 

was like “poor Edwin,” of whom Dr. Beattie sings in his 
famous poem of “ The Minstrel,” that he was 

“ No vulgar boy; 

Dainties he heeded not, nor gaud, nor toy, 

Save one short pipe ! 

and proceeded to spend a half-hour, if need were, which he was 
sure not to find a long one. 

Kate went with Mrs. Pendleton into the cottage. 


216 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


It consisted of two rooms down stairs, and two rooms 
up stairs, together with some conveniences for back kitchen, etc., 
in tliG form of a “ lean-to,” built at the rear between the cliff 
and the front rooms. Of the two rooms down stairs, one was 
floored with flagstones, and served as the living room of the 
family. The other was boarded and sanded, had a coloured 
print of Nelson over the mantelpiece ; two bottles with 
coloured sands arranged in layers within them, and two dried 
star-fish on it ; a green baize covered round table, and two 
Windsor chairs in the centre of the room ; a brilliantly 
painted japanned tea-tray leaning against the wall behind a 
large Bible — (both articles alike deemed too good and splendid 
ever to be used) — on a side table. This room was always kept 
locked, and served for nothing at all, save keeping up in the 
minds of the members of the family a consciousness of social 
dignity, and assuring their social status among their neigh- 
bours by the possession of a parlour. The profession of the 
head of the family, it must be remembered, made some such 
sacrifice to public opinion more necessary than it might have 
been in another case. For though, as has been said, the 
trade of a bold smuggler was looked on with much indulgence 
in those days, and in those parts of the country, still such an 
amount of prejudice against the respectability of a career of 
law-breaking existed, as would place a smuggler with a 
parlour only on the same level of respectability as a law- 
abiding mechanic without that aristocratic appendage. 

It would be an error therefore to say that the sanded 
parlour of the smuggler’s cottage served no purpose, even if 
those august occasions were forgotten, when Mr. Pendleton, in 
great state, smoked a long pipe and drank brandy and water 
in company with some too narrow-minded dealer in any of the 
articles respecting which Mr. Pendleton and the Custom-house 
authorities were at variance. That bold smuggler, and very 
specially able-bodied seaman, was alv/ays on these occasions 
dressed in a full suit of black cloth, and got up generally in 
imitation of a dissenting minister. He assumed this costume 
and the title of Mister together, and never at such times 
smoked anything shorter than a full-lengthed half-yard of clay, 
with a red stain at the end of it, which he haj;ed. And alto-* 
gether he was very unhappy during these periods of relaxation 
and enjoyment ; but indulged in them occasionally, because he 
deemed it right to do so. 

The two upper rooms were the sleeping chambers of the 


LINDISFAUN CHASE. 


217 


family ; and when the wounded stranger had been thrown 
upon her hospitality, it would have been easy for Mrs. 
Pendleton to have arranged a bed in the sanded parlour, and 
so avoid the necessity of turning any of her family out of 
their sleeping quarters. But that would have involved sacri- 
lege in the desecration of the parlour to ordinary and secular 
uses ; and was not to be thought of. 

So Mrs. Pendleton had turned her boys out of their room, 
and had put the stranger in their place. It was a room that 
many an inhabitant of princely palaces in the streets of cities 
might envy ! Not very large, and not very lofty ; but with 
such a window ! — a good-sized casement window looking out 
on the little plot of garden ground, and beyond it over such an 
expanse of varied coast, and almost equally varied, and, what 
is more, changefully varied, sea and sky, as few windows could 
match. And every sweet, invigorating, health-laden breeze 
from the ocean came fresh from its dalliance with the wave- 
tops into that chamber ; and though the storm- winds also 
howled around it, and passionately shook it, and beat against 
it, the inmates of it were well used to the roughly musical 
lullaby, and slept none the less soundly for it. 

But the storm of the two preceding nights had entirely 
expended itself. The ocean, like an angry child, had forgotten 
all its so recent fury, as quickly as it had yielded to it, and was 
shining in the mid-day sunshine. And a soft wind from the 
south was blowing gently into the open window immediately 
opposite to the sick man’s bed. The casement was low ; and 
the old-fashioned bed was high ; so that the occupant of it, 
propped up by pillows which rested against the white-washed 
wall behind the bed, could see, not indeed the garden-plot 
immediately beneath the window, or indeed any part of the 
coast-view stretching away on either side of it, but the distant 
sea, with its shimmering paths of light and shade, and the 
white sails of the ships and fishing smacks as they turned up 
their canvas to the sunbeam, like sea-birds turning in their 
flight, or in obedience to an “ over” of the helm, dwindled to a 
barely visible speck on the horizon. 

The stranger, who had fought among the foremost and 
fiercest in the fray with the Coast-guard men, had received 
two bad hurts ; one on the temple and side of the head, and 
one in the chest. His head was bound up, not very neatly or 
skilfully it would have seemed to scientific surgical eyes, with 
a superabundance of linen cloths, which still showed in parts 


218 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


of them the stains of the blood which had soaked them 
through when they were first used to stanch it. The other 
wound had been doubtless treated in a similar manner ; but it 
was covered by the bedclothes, and therefore contributed no 
part to the ghastly appearance of the patient, as he lay gazing 
wistfully over the expanse of the waters which had borne him 
to this sad ending of his career. 

For he had no doubt that he was dying ; and old Bagstock’s 
shrugging declaration, that he did not see that there was 
anything to be done for him, did but needlessly confirm his 
own conviction. 

Old Mr. Bagstock was a “general practitioner’^ of the sort 
that general practitioners mostly were in remote districts and 
among poor populations forty years ago. Old Bagstock was 
not the only general practitioner at Sillmouth. The other was 
young Bawlings ; and there was all the difference between 
them to the advantage of the latter, that the two epithets 
denoted ; — a difference, which at just about that period in the 
history of medical science and practice was far from a small 
one. But old Bagstock almost exclusively commanded the 
confidence and the adherence of the maritime population of 
Sillmouth. Sailors are especially tenacious of old ways and 
habits. Old Bagstock had brought the greater number of the 
Sillmouth sailors, fishermen, and smugglers into the world ; 
and they seemed to feel that that fact gave him a vested right 
to a monopoly in seeing them out of it. A number of things 
old Bagstock had done, and a number of people he had known 
before that Rawlings had been ever heard of, were constantly 
cited as incontrovertible arguments to the disfavour of the 
latter. And sailors have a very strong conviction that people 
die “when their time is come and are much more inclined to 
attribute to that fact the death of any patient whatever, than 
to any lack of skill in the doctor. 

As for old Bagstock himself, he held a not widely different 
theory, especially as to the roughs of the not very select circle 
of his practice. He considered that if a smuggler got a 
mortal wound, it was useless to try to cure him of it ; and if 
he got a wound, which was not mortal, he was so hard, and 
hardy, and tough, that he was sure to recover from it. And it 
is probable that his practice was more accurately squared to 
the logical consequences of this theory, in cases where there 
was small prospect of much or any remuneration for his care, 
and most of all in that of a stranger and a Frenchman, of 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE. 


219 


whom no one knew anything, and for whose doctor’s bills it 
was not likely that anybody he could get at, would choose to 
be responsible. 

So, when the wounded man had told Pendleton, before he 
had started for the moor, that it was all over with him ; and 
Pendleton, whose traffic on the other side of the water had 
enabled him to comprehend a few words of French, had told 
the same to his wife, who repeated the same thing to the 
doctor, old Bagstock had perfectly acquiesced in the opinion ; 
and having somewhat perfunctorily stanched the flow of blood, 
and bound up the wounds, had taken himself off to some more 
medically or pecuniarily promising case. And it having been 
settled thus nem, con. that the wounded man was to die, Mrs. 
Pendleton, in her husband’s absence, and her anxieties about 
the consequences and responsibilities that might fall upon her, 
as a result of the death taking place in her house, was exceed- 
ingly comforted and tranquillised by the appearance of her 
kind friends from the Chase. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

A GOOD SAMARITAN. 

Kate knew perfectly well, when she started from the Chase 
on her present errand of kindness towards her old favourite, 
and of Christian charity towards the wounded stranger, that 
the business was not a pleasant one. And it was not without 
considerable shrinking and nervousness, that she followed Mrs. 
Pendleton up the steep and narrow staircase of the cottage, 
and entered the chamber in which the sick man had been laid. 
But she had not been prepared for the shock which the sight 
of the patient occasioned her. The spectacle was one entirely 
new to her ; and the first impression that it produced on her 
mind was that too surely the man was dying. 

The blood-dabbled cloth around his brows, the long locks of 


220 


LINDTSFARN CHASE. 


coal-black balr, escaping* from under on the side of the head 
which was not wounded, and the black unshaven beard, added 
by the force of contrast to the ghastly paleness of his face. 
He had large dark eyes, which must have been handsome, 
when seen under normal circumstances, but which now, sunken 
and haggard as they were, and with a wild and anxious looking 
gleam, the result of fever, in them, only served to add to the 
weird and fearful appearance of his face. 

“ Tell Mr. Mat,’^ said Kate, turning back with a little 
shudder to Mrs. Pendleton, as she was following the young 
lady into the room, “ not to leave the garden ; he may be 
needed.” 

She would have been puzzled to account rationally for the 
impulse which induced her to say this. It was, in fact, merely 
the instinctive connection between a feeling of alarm and the 
desire not to be alone in the presence of that which causes it. 
Mrs. Pendleton looked round, in her turn, to one of her boys, 
who, childlike, had crept, with feelings of awe, up the staircase 
after them and said : 

“ Go down, Jem, into the garden, and tell Mr. Mat that Miss 
Lindisfarn begs he will keep within call, in case she might 
want him.” 

The wounded man turned his head quickly towards the door 
at which the two women were standing, as the above words 
were uttered, and gazed earnestly at them for a few moments, 
and then, with the restless action peculiar to pain and fever, 
turned his face towards the wall on the further side of the 
bed. 

“ You are badly wounded, I fear,” said Kate, in French, 
and in a trembling voice, as she stepped up to the bedside. 

“ Yes, to death ! ” answered the sufferer in the same language, 
casting his eyes up at her face for a moment, and then uneasily 
resuming his former position. He had only uttered three 
words, but the intonation of them seemed to Kate’s ear to 
carry with it strong evidence that the stranger belonged to a 
more cultivated social grade than that to which the Sillmouth 
smugglers usually belonged. It might be, however, Kate 
thought, that they managed matters connected with the edu- 
cation of smugglers better in France. 

“ I came to see what could be done to cure you, or, at least, 
to comfort you,” she said, in a voice indicating even more 
misgiving than before ; for the stern shortness of the man’s 
manner was discouraging. 


LINDTSFARN CHASE, 


221 


Nothing can be done for the first, and little enough for 
the last,” he said, turning restlessly and impatiently on the 
bed. 

“Did the doctor say when he would come back?” asked 
Kate, turning towards Mrs. Pendleton, who was standing at the 
bed foot. 

“ No, Miss Kate, he didn’t. I zem he thou'ght there was no 
use in coming back again,” returned Winifred, shaking her 
head sadly. 

“ But it is impossible,” returned Kate, “to leave a man to die 
in this manner. What are we to do ? I declare that old 
Mr. Bagstock has no more humanity than a brute, to leave a 
poor man in this state.” 

“Well, Miss, for the matter of that. Dr. Bagstock knows if 
a man must die, he must ! And what’s the good of running 
up expenses and wasting time for nothing ? Doctor Bagstock 
have a deal to do, and heaps o’ people to see tu. And poor folk 
can’t have doctors a fiddling about ’em just to amuse their 
friends, the way rich folk du. If Bagstock could ha’ saved his 
life, he’d ha’ done it.” 

“ You were not able to speak to the doctor ? ” said Kate, 
interrogatively, turning to the patient, and speaking, as before, 
in French. 

“ What was the need of speaking ? ” returned the sufferer 
testily ; “ I want no doctor to tell me that I am dying. I feel 
the life ebbing out of me.” 

“You must have lost much blood ? ” said Kate, to whose 
mind the stranger’s phrase had suggested the idea. 

For all reply, he faintly raised one hand, which was lying 
outside the bed clothes, on the coverlet, to his head, and let it 
drop again heavily by his side. 

“But the wounds have been effectually stanched, I suppose?^’ 
returned Kate, who was striving to apply her very slender 
stock of surgical ideas to the question, whether indeed it was 
necessary to abandon all hope of saving life. 

“ I wish you would send the woman to get me a glass of 
fresh water. That in the bottle here is hot,” said the patient. 

“He wants to drink, Winny j and he says this water is hot. 
It is the fever, you know. Go, there is a good soul, and bring 
him some fresh from the spring.” 

Mrs. Pendleton took the bottle in her hand, and left the 
room, without speaking. As soon as her step had been heard 
descending the stair, which passed immediately on the other 


222 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


side of the wall at the bed head, the stranger turned his face 
to the side of the bed at which Kate was standing, and looking 
up wistfully at her, with the gleam of fever in his restless 
eyes, said in English : 

“I wish I could speak with you privately. Find some means 
of sending that woman out of the room.” 

“ You can speak English, then ? ” said Kate, much surprised. 

“ I can ; but have no wish to do so before these people. You 
spoke of comfort ! You may give some to a dying man, if you 
will do as I have asked you. You can do so in no other 
way.” 

“ Certainly, I will do as you desire,” replied Kate, not 
without a little trepidation and beating of the heart ; ‘‘ but,” 
she added, as the idea suddenly flashed across her mind, “ I 
have a friend here with me — a relative ; he is a gentleman 

whom you could trust implicitly with anything,” she added, 

hesitating a little, “ that ought to be told to an honourable 

gentleman and who has more experience, and would be of 

more use than I could be ” 

“ No ! ” said the dying man decisively ; “ if you will do the 
charity I have asked, it must be done as I have asked it, and 
no otherwise.” 

Mrs. Pendleton’s step, returning with the water, was heard 
on the stair as he finished speaking ; and Kate, turning with a 
light step to the door, met her on the landing-piace just outside 
of it ; and taking the water-bottle froir.. her hands, whispered 
to her : 

“ Go down stairs, Winny ; and leave me with him for a little 
while. He says he wants to speak to me alone. I suppose 
he has something on his mind. Perhaps he wants to ask about 
a priest. I suppose he is a Catholic. But, Winny, whatever 
you do, don’t leave the house ; so that, if I call, you may hear 
me and come directly. Mind now ! ” 

Mrs. Pendleton gave her a reassuring look and nod ; and 
Kate, with a feeling of no little nervousness, returned to the 
stranger’s bed-side. 

“ Is the door shut ? ” asked the stranger. 

“Yes, the door is shut ; and Mrs. Pendleton has gone down 
stairs. You cannot be overheard,” said Kate. 

“ You have already perceived,” said the man, after a pause of 
some little duration, while he had apparently been hesitating 
how to enter on what he wished to say ; “ you have no doubt 
already understood that I am not what my comrades of last 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


223 


night supposed me to be, and that I have reasons for wishing 
them not to be better informed ! ” 

“Of course, I suppose so, from your leading them to 
imagine that you cannot speak English,” replied Kate. 

“ I joined a smuggling venture from the opposite coast as a 
means, the only one open to me, of coming here unknown to 
those who might recognise me, for I have been known in the 
country formerly ; and of securing an unquestioned return by 

the same means together with a person whom I wished to 

tske back with me. All has been frustrated by last night’s 
unlucky work.” 

He paused, exhausted apparently by the few words he had 
spoken, or, perhaps, mentally occupied in arranging what he 
had to say, so as best to place the matter before his hearer, and 
then proceeded wdth considerable hesitation : 

“ The woman here called you Miss Lindisfarn ? ” 

“That is my name, — Kate Lindisfarn,” replied she. 

“ And she sent a child to give a message from you to Mr. Mat 
in the garden ? ” 

“She did so!” 

“ That then must be Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn, of the Chase. 
And you have come all the way from Lindisfarn Chase, eight 
or nine miles from this place, to see me. I know the country, 
you see, and something of the people.” 

“ Certainly, you must be a Sillshire man. But in that case, 
have you no friends here, who, even if you wished to avoid 
them before, ought to be made acquainted with your present 
condition ? ” 

“I have relatives here who would by no means thank me 

for making myself known to them, or to anybody else. Never- 
theless, it is needful that they should be hereafter made aware 
that I was living this day, and that as soon as I am dead 
they should know that I am alive no longer. You will see, 
therefore. Miss Lindisfarn, that my object is to tell you who 
I am, and to obtain your promise to keep the information 
secret until I have breathed my last. Will you promise me to 
do so ? ” 

“I will keep your secret,” said Kate, “if it is not wrong to 
do so, and if it is not evidently my duty to disclose it.” 

“ You will be well aware, when you have heard it, that the 
keeping of it is essential to the welfare of all parties concerned, 
and that the disclosing of it could only serve to cause misery 
and distress.” 


224 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ In that case,’’ returned Kate, you may certainly depend 
upon my not disclosing it.” 

The stranger paused again for some minutes, and turned 
away his face towards the wall on the opposite side of the bed 
to that on which Kate was standing. Then turning his face 
and wistful feverish eyes again towards her, by rolling his head 
on the pillow, he said : 

“ You have an uncle, Miss Lindisfarn, Dr. Theophilus Lindis- 
farn, living in the Close, at Silverton ? ” 

Kate, wondering greatly, made no reply, till he added, “ That 
is so, is it not ? ” 

“ Yes,” she then said ; Dr. Lindisfarn in the Close, is my 
uncle.” 

‘•And Lady Sempronia, his wife, lives there also.” 

“ Of course she lives there also,” said Kate, in growing 
astonishment. 

“I did not know whether she was yet living,” said the 
stranger ; and then, from want of strength or some other reason, 
he paused again. After a while he continued : 

“ Has Dr. Lindisfarn, in the Close at Silverton, any 
children ? ” 

“ He has none now. He had a son once, who died many 
years ago.” 

“ Can you tell me when and where he died ? ” asked the 
stranger, looking up at her. 

“ I do not know exactly when ; it was several years ago ; 
and I believe that he died in America.” 

“ Do you know at all the manner of his death ? ” 

“ Yes, he was killed by the Ked Indians, in a hunting 
excursion.” 

“ Do you know how that information reached his family ? ” 

“Not exactly. I know only that pains were taken, and 
people were sent to America to find out the facts, and that it 
was considered certain that he had died as I have said.” 

“Nevertheless he did not die in that manner,” said the 
stranger v/ith a heavy sigh. 

The truth then flashed upon Kate, that the dying' man 
who was speaking to her from his dying bed, was indeed that 
lost cousin, whose existence, whose death, and whose history, 
and memory, had always been to her imagination shrouded 
in a veil of mystery. She knew only that such an one had 
lived, had died, and for some vag’ucly understood reason was 
never mentioned by any one of the family. Though it is 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


225 


possible that, if her mind had been set to work upon the 
subject, Kate’s slender knowledge of the line of descent 
and of real property might have sufficed to make her 
aware, that the existence of her cousin would affect her 
own position as one of the heiresses of the lands of Lindis- 
farn ; still, never having been taught to look at the fact of his 
disappearance in its connection with that subject, and not 
having any precise knowledge of the real state of the case, the 
sudden conviction that her cousin was living, and was there 
before her, did not present itself to her mind as bearing in any 
way upon that matter. There was no mixture, therefore, of 
any baser alloy in the feeling with which she replied to his last 

words, “Can it be possible that you are he, Julian, my lost 

cousin ? ” 

“ It is possible ! it is so ! ” he replied, without manifesting the 
least share in the effusion of feeling with which Kate had 
spoken. “The information brought from America was in- 
correct. I was nearly but not quite killed by the Indians. 
They strike less heavily than the King’s Custom-house officers. 
Worse luck ! I survived that time; and I am, still living for a 
little while, Julian Lindisfarn.” 

“ But, gracious heavens ! you must have some better assist- 
ance I must send ” cried Kate, turning hastily towards 

the door. 

“ Stay ! ” said the dying man ; “ no better assistance could 
be of any service to me ; and remember your promise ! ” 

“ I will keep it faithfully. Be assured of that. There is one 
person indeed to whom I should wish to tell the secret, — my 
sister and ” 

“Ah ! your sister Margaret? She is no longer then in 
France ? ” 

“ Ko ! she is living now at the Chase ; and I should like to 

tell her, I have no secrets from her, I should not like to 

keep this from her ; and of course the secret would be as 

safe with her as with me.” 

“ Well ! do as you will. But remember that you will produce 
nothing but distress if my being alive here becomes known to 
the rest of the family.” 

Kate would, as may be supposed, have bargained for including 
her godmother in her confidence, but to her great regret. Lady 
Farnleigh was no longer in Sillshire. On the morrow of that 
stormy March evening, which she was spending at the Chase, 
she had started for her son’s residence in a distant county, in 
15 


226 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


order to be present at the christening* of his first child. Pos- 
sibly, if Lady Parnleigh had been within reach, Kate might 
not have insisted on telling the secret to Margaret ; but, as it 
was, she felt that she must have some sharer in it, and that it 
would be very painful to her to keep it from her sister. 

“ I will be careful,” she said, in reply to her cousin’s last 
words ; “but I must send at once for better medical help.” 

And so saying, Kate hurried down to Mr. Mat, who was 
placidly smoking his pipe in the old boat turned into 
a summer-house, and begged him to ride as fast as he 
could to Silverton, and bring back with him, if possible. 
Dr. Blakistry. 

Now, Dr. Blakistry was a very well known name in that day. 
He was one of the first surgeons in England; but his delicate 
health had two or three years previously compelled him, to the 
great regret of a large circle of London friends and patients, 
to settle himself in the West of England. 

“You know, I suppose,” said Julian Lindisfarn, when 
Kate, having dispatched Mr. Mat on his errand, hurried 
back to the patient’s bed-side, “why I went away from 
Silverton.” 

“ No ! I have never heard any of those circumstances 
spoken of. I know only that for some reason no mention 
was ever made in the family, of the son of Dr. Lindisfarn, 
who was supposed to have died in America,” said Kate, 
sadly. 

The wounded man still moving his head with fevered rest- 
lessness on the pillow, turned his eyes away from her, and 
remained silent for a while. Then again looking up at her, he 
said : 

“ I know right well that this doctor you have sent for can 
only say the same as the other said. I feel that I am dying ! 
Therefore it will all soon come to the same thing. But since 
you know nothing about me, or my story. Cousin, all I need 
say is, that if you were to save my life, by bringing this other 
doctor to me, everyone that bears the name of Lindisfarn 
would consider that you had done the worst day’s work you 
ever did in your life, and had caused a misfortune to the family 
that you could never remedy ! ” 

“But surely it all seems so shocking and so incre- 

dible ! ” said Kate, whose head was whirling with the strange- 
ness of the revelation that had been made to her. 

“ Do not alarm yourself ! ” said Julian, in a tone that seemed, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


227 


weak as it was, to have more of irony than of sympathy or 
any other feeling in it ; “ it will all be well very shortly. Only 
remember that you will not only break your promise to me, but 
bring all kinds of trouble and distress and heartbreak upon 
all connected with us, — with you and with me, if you 
reveal to any human being the fact of my being alive and 
here.” 

“I have promised,” said Kate; “but it is clear that the first 
and most pressing need is to procure you better medical help 
than you have yet had ! Who can say what the result may 
be ? ” 

“You can understand, of course, Cousin,” resumed Julian, 
looking up at her, “ that if I had lived, as, four- and- twenty 
hours ago, I had as good a chance of doing as another, — it 
would have been right that you and all the family should know 
that I was living. It was my intention to have found the 
means of making the fact known to them all. But now it 
becomes necessary to let it be known that my death will not 
make that change to you, which you might naturally expect it 
to do.” 

He ceased speaking, and again remained silent for some 
minutes ; while Kate, altogether mystified by what he had been 
saying, was doubting whether he were not becoming light- 
headed, and thinking whether she were not perhaps doing 
mischief by allowing him to go on talking. .Presently he 
continued : 

“ I have been thinking that it it not necessary for me now to 

tell you circumstances, which have nothing pleasant about 

them in the telling. But if you would kindly take a small 
sealed packet from the breast-pocket of that jacket there, which 
they took off me this morning, and keep it safely till I am 
dead, and then give it to my father. Dr. Lindisfarn, all that is 
needful would then be known and done. And you might do as 
you please about letting them all know that you were aware 
that the wounded smuggler who was dying at Sillmouth was 
Julian Lindisfarn. Will you do this for me. Cousin ? All I ask 
is, that you tell no human being that I am lying here, till all is 
over ; and that you will give that packet then, and not till then, 
to Dr. Lindisfarn.” 

“ But if, as I still trust in God, you should not die. 
Cousin ? ” 

“ Well ! everything is possible ! In that case then, you will 
be almost equally soon free from your promise. For if I should 
15—2 


228 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


not die, I shall very soon be away from this. I should in that 
very improbable case reclaim my packet ; and you would be at 
liberty to do just as you thought fit about telling or not telliug 
anything of our strange meeting here.” 

Kate took the packet as her cousin desired, and again 
assuring him that she would faithfully keep the promises she 
had given him, told him that she would then leave him, as it 
was not good that he should talk any more. 

Who is this doctor you have sent for, Cousin ? ” he asked, 
as she was leaving the room. 

A Dr. Blakistry ; — a very famous surgeon, who came to 
settle at Silverton two or three years ago.” 

‘‘Good ; there is no chance then of his recognising me 

though as Mrs. Pendleton failed to do so, it is little likely that 
anybody would. Can he speak French ? ” 

“ I should think so. In all probability, more or less ; — 
enough to communicate with you. Good-bye, Cousin. God 
bless and preserve you ! I cannot remain here till after the 
doctor has seen you. But I shall take care to have his report 
sent to me; and I shall be sure to come and see you to- 
morrow.” 

“ I expect no to-morrow ; but I think all has been said that 
needs to be said. Good-bye, Cousin ! ” 

And so saying, he turned his face to the wall. 

Kate had not long to wait, after leaving the sick chamber, 
before Mr. Mat returned from his two-mile ride to Silverton, 
saying that Dr. Blakistry would not fail to be there within an 
hour or an hour and a half at the outside. 

So Kate and Mr. Mat rode back to the Chase ; the former 
much oppressed by the novel and unpleasant feeling of having 
a secret to keep, and Mr. Mat attributing Kate’s silence and 
absence of good spirits to the painful nature of the Good 
Samaritan’s duty on which she had been engaged. 


END OP PART VII. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


229 




CHAPTER XXII. 

MAIDEN MEDITATIONS NOT FANCY-FREE. 

The first thing* Kate did on reaching’ her own room, when 
she returned from her expedition to Sillmouth, was to place the 
packet, which had been entrusted to her, in her desk, which 
she always kept locked. The envelope was not very much 
larger, though somewhat thicker and more bulky, than an 
ordinary letter. The next thing was to draw the bolt of her 
own door, and sit down to meditate on the strange adventure 
of the morning, and on the facts which it had brought to her 
knowledge. 

She had truly said that she was ignorant of the circum- 
stances which had led to her cousin’s quitting Silverton. But 
she had a vague knowledge that they were of a calamitous and 
disgraceful kind. And the shocking things that he had said 
respecting the feelings with which tidings of his return would 
be received by his family, seemed to confirm but too clearly the 
worst surmises she could form on the subject. 

Then came the sudden thought, was it possible that the 
stranger was not in reality her cousin Julian after all, — that 
the latter had really died, as had seemed so certain, in America, 
and that the man she had spoken with had, for some motive of 
fraud, wished to personate him ? 

But a few moments’ reflection led her to reject any such 
hypothesis. The manner and mood of speech, which proved 
that he certainly did not belong to the class of life in which 
she had found him : the correct knowledge he had possessed of 
persons and things connected with the family, and his evident 


230 


LINDISFAHN CHASE, 


fear of being recognised as the man he professed to be, all con- 
tributed to confirm Kate in the conviction that it was assuredly 
her cousin Julian with whom she had spoken. The letter, too, 
with which he had entrusted her, would doubtless contain evi- 
dence of his identity. 

But while the considerations which led her to this conclusion 
were passing through her mind, the thought of the motives 
that might induce anyone to attempt such an impersonation 
was also naturally presented to her ; and this led her all of a 
sudden, as she sate meditating somewhat desultorily on all the 
strange facts and occurrences of the morning, to the recogni- 
tion of the bearing that Julian’s life must have upon the posi- 
tion in the world of herself and her sister. It was curious that 
this had not struck her while she had stood by the bed-side of 
her cousin. It was not that his death would put matters back 
again in statu quo, for she had refused to admit to herself that 
his death was certain. But not even when the wounded man 
had spoken words calculated to place the matter before her 
mind, had she sufficiently put away from its front place in her 
thoughts the immediate misery of the sufferer before her, to be 
able to seize that aspect of the circumstances. 

Kow the truth flashed upon her, as a precipice suddenly 
reveals itself to a man wandering about among thick brush- 
wood on its summit. It seems wonderful that his eye should 
not have caught sight of it before. All of a sudden one step 
among the brushes brings him face to face with it. 

Suddenly, as she sat thinking over all that had happened 
that morning, the truth flashed upon her that she was no longer 
heiress to any portion of her father’s estate ! It was a tremen- 
dous shock. Kate Lindisfarn was as far as possible from 
being a worldly-minded, or mammon- worshipping girl. She 
had, indeed, had so little experience in her life of the dif- 
ference between poverty and wealth, that it was hardly a 
matter of merit in her to be free from an overweening regard 
for the latter. Kevertheless the fact that suddenly reared itself 
up naked and clearly defined in the path of her mind was a 
terrible one, and gave her a violent shock. 

Then in the next instant rushed into her mind also a whole 
troop of thoughts, which changed the sudden pallor caused in 
her cheeks by the first dismay, to a hot painful flush. 

Ellingham ! It would have been a vain hypocrisy for 

Kate to pretend to her own heart doubt that Captain Elling- 
ham loved her. He had never told her so. Quite true ! And 


LINDISFARH CHASE. 


231 


till he should do so, it was for her to seem unconscious of the 
fact. But it was useless to play this proper little comedy before 
her own heart. She knew that Ellingham loved her. And 
some girls perhaps would have rejoiced that now “ the dross 
that made a barrier between them was removed,” etc., etc., etc. 
But Kate was not sufficiently romantic to view the matter in 
that light. She had not the slightest suspicion that Captain 
Ellingham had loved her, and would in due course of time ask 
her to be his wife, for the sake of her fortune. But she was 
perfectly well aware that he was a a very poor man, in a posi- 
tion in which poverty is especially undesirable ; she understood 
perfectly well that it might be right and prudent for him to 
marry under favourable circumstances as regarded fortune, 
when it might be impossible, or at least highly imprudent, to 
do so otherwise. Above all, she felt that in any case, whatever 
her sentiments and opinions might be on such a point if she 
were called on to consider it, it was not for her to reflect on it 
under the present circumstances. It was for the consideration 
of another person ; and what mainly imported to Kate was, 
that it should be placed before him for consideration. It was 
dreadful to her to think, that as matters stood at the present 
moment, she should appear to him in a position and under cir- 
cumstances that were not her own. She was winning his heart 
— she knew, at the bottom of her own, that she had already 
won it — under false colours and false pretences. She felt as if 
she were an impostor ; and the thought as it passed through 
her mind made her cheek tingle. It was shocking to her to 
think that she had during all this time been appearing to the 
world as the heiress to a handsome fortune, whereas she was in 
fact nothing of the kind. And it was far more terrible to 
think that she must continue to do so knowingly until she 
should be liberated from her promise, and set free to tell the 

truth by her cousin’s departure from Sillshire or by 

It was revolting to her to contemplate release from her posi- 
tion in that other direction. Release from the odious necessity 
of secresy would be afforded by her cousin’s death. But as 

regards her own position and expectations, what was that, 

which Julian had said about his death causing no difierence to 
her ; and which now recurred to her mind in a different train 
of ideas from any with which she had connected it, when she 
had first heard it. What was the meaning of those words ? 
But this was not what was pressing on her for immediate con- 
sideration. Her mind revolted from contemplating Julian’s 


232 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


death as certain, and from calculating on the consequences that 
might result from it. She was very far from imagining or 
attempting to persuade herself, that a fall from the position of 
one of the Lindisfarn heiresses to that of an almost undowered 
girl was a trifling matter, or other than a very serious misfor- 
tune and calamity. But it was most true that as she sate in 
the chair before her little drawing-table, absorbed in these 
meditations, the idea of continuing to represent herself, or 
suffering herself to bo represented to her lover as what she was 
not — for she did not attempt to disguise from herself that she 
knew him to be such — was infinitely more terrible. This was 
the matter that pressed for instant solution. What was she to 
do ? What line of conduct to pursue ? Oh, that she had not 
bound herself to secresy ! And yet the truth of Julian’s 
declaration that trouble and distress would be caused to every- 
body whose well-being she was bound most to care for, by a 
discovery of his presence, was evident. What was she to do ? 
Oh that Lady Farnleigh had not been so unfortunately called 
away ! Had she been in Sills hire, Kate would doubtless have 
stipulated that she should have been made a sharer in the 
secret. She might have been safely trusted. She would have 
known how to release her goddaughter from her false position 
as regarded the only person whose continuance in error respect- 
ing her real prospects for a day or two more or less much 
signified to her. 

Then her mind reverted to the conversation at the breakfast- 
table on thejyesterday morning, and passed in review all those 
passages of it, which have been described as having been put 
by in the hiding-places of her memory for future use ; — but not 
for use under such circumstances as the present ! — and the tears 
gathered slowly in her eyes as she thought of the pleasure 
they had given her ; — of the upright, loyal heart of that brave 
man, who, as Kate’s own heart with instinctive sympathy told 
her, could not have ‘‘ loved her so much, loved he not honour 
more ; ” — of the hard, dangerous, and thankless nature of that 
“duty ” to which he was so loyally true, and of the fond, sweet 
thought that she, even she, was to be the reward which fate 
had in store for him, and the means of placing him above the 
necessity of so ungrateful a task ! 

The hot tears rose, and gathered, and brimmed over on the 
peach-like cheek, the rounded swell of which no sorrow had 
ever yet mined. The sensation of them on her face recalled 
her mind from its truant wandering to the needs of the 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


233 


present. She dashed away the tears with an angry action of 
her hand, 

“ What a fool I am,” she said aloud, “ to let myself think of 
things that might have been, when there is so much need of 
thinking of things as they are ! 

Something must absolutely bo done! — something; but 

what ? It was absolute torture to her to think of herself as 

receiving the homage and the wooing (there was no use or 

honesty in mincing the phrase ; it was wooing, that Captain 
Ellingham had been offering to her ; and she dared not deny 
to her own heart that she knew it was so — ) of Captain 
Ellingham, when he was led to suppose that she was a 
heiress of large fortune, and she was in possession of the truth 
that nothing of the sort was the case. It was torture — intole- 
rable torture to her. But what could she do ? 

Could she write to Lady Farnleigh ? not to betray her 

cousin’s secret in defiance of her solemn promise; that was 
impossible, — but some sort of letter, couched in mysterious 
terms, which should induce her to intimate to Captain Elling- 
ham that he had better not think of proposing to her — (Kate) 
— for that she was not what she seemed to be ! And she really 
took pen in hand to essay the composition of such a letter ; 
and after two or three trials gave up the attempt in despair. 
How was it possible for her to request that Captain Ellingham 
should be warned that he had better not offer to her, before he 
had ever uttered a word of the kind ? How was she to inform 
her godmother of the fact that she was not her father’s heir 
in any manner that should appear sane, and should not at once 
bring upon her such an inquiry and examination as would 
make the keeping of her secret impossible ? 

Had her godmother been there present, it might have been 
possible — it seemed to Kate — so to speak to her as to obtain 
her assistance, without divulging the secret she was bound to 
keep. But it was impossible to do this by letter. 

And then she had — and had had ever since the iete-a-teie 
of the breakfasfc-table — a lurking consciousness that this offer 
from Captain Ellingham, which she would now give worlds 
to stave off, was not very far away. It was a lurking, vague, 
unavowed consciousness, which would never have shaped itself 
into definite form before her mind, but would only have flung 
a rose-coloured light of unquestioned happiness over her 
life, like the golden glory thrown far and wide over the 
landscape by the lambent summer lightning, had it not been 


234 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


condensed into fear by tlie new circumstances of her life. 

But now, should the offer come it was agony to think 

of it ! What should she do ? What she must do was clear, 

so far. She must refuse but without assigning any reason 

— any motive! It was very cruel very dreadful... ...and 

after all that had come and gone 1 And thereupon a crowd of 
little minute consciousnesses came flocking into her mind — 
memories of looks and glances — emphasized words charged 
with an amount of meaning accurately gauged and weighed by 
the self-registering and miraculously delicate erosometer of a 
young girl’s fresh heart ; pressings of the hand so slight and 
shy, that they did their work rather by electric than by 
dynamic force, yet did it surely, and left marks on the memory 
never more to be cancelled ; all these stored treasures, each 
labelled with its date as accurately as Miss Immy marked her 
eggs, came thronging into her mind from their separate 
memory cells. They had so often been summoned forth in 
Kate’s hours of reverie and self-communion, that it was natural 
for them to come as usual now. But now they were not wanted. 
They might go back — poor faded treasures — to their hiding- 
places ; treasures ever, and not to be destroyed, save with con- 
sciousness itself ; but no more, never more to be reviewed on 
memory’s gay and gala days ; relics only, sacred though sad, 
to be brought forth in seasons of the heart’s fast-days and 
humiliations. 

And again as she forcibly thrust back these remembrances 
into the deepest recesses of her mind, the tears overflowed upon 
her cheeks ; and again she angrily shook them from her, and 
accused them of interfering with the active measures it behoved 
her to take. Yet, what active measures ? Again, what — what 
was she to do ? 

And Margaret, too ? Yes ! How was that to be done ? 
There was Margaret to be talked to. How glad Kate was that 
she had stipulated that her sister should be told ; she had done 
so at the moment merely from the feeling that she liked to have 
no secrets from her sister, and from the desire to have some 
one to help her in sustaining the weight of it. The necessity 
that Margaret also should be made aware of what her true 
position was, with a view to properly regulating her conduct 
towards others had not then occurred to her. But now it was 
but too clear to her, when she turned her mind to that part of 
the sea of perplexities which surrounded her, that Margaret 
was in the same difficulty with regard to Falconer that she was 


LINDISPARN CHASE. 


235 


in with regard to Elliiighara. Kate had seen, with no reason 
or inclination to regret or object to it, that Falconer had been 
very evidently paying assiduous court to her sister, and that 
Margaret had been very abundantly willing to accept as much 
of his homage as he chose to bring to her shrine. Kate could 
not doubt that Frederick Falconer purposed making Margaret 
his wife. In his case, it is true, there could not be the same 
difficulty in marrying an undowered wife as in the case of 
Ellingham. Frederick Falconer would be abundantly rich 
enough to marry a girl without a fortune, if he chose to do so. 
But somehow or other, though she had never put into tangible 
form any ideas in her mind upon the subject, she felt as if she 
had had a revelation on the point, that Freddy Falconer would 
not so choose. She felt far more certain of it in his case than 
she did in that other, which she would not permit herself to 
scrutinize more narrowly. And she did not feel any necessity 
for laying heavy blame on Frederick on that account. Doubt- 
less his father would wish him to increase his wealth by mar- 
riage. But the conviction that it would not suit Mr. Frederick 
Falconer to marry a girl without a penny, that he would never 
have sought her sister’s love had he supposed her to have been 
such, and that he would consider himself to have been cruelly 
deluded — or at all events, a most unfortunate victim of error — 
if he were to propose to her under such circumstances : all 
these considerations made her feel very acutely the absolute 
necessity of in some way preventing him as well as Ellingham, 
from proceeding in the path in which both of them were so 
evidently advancing under erroneous impressions. 

Frederick had been up at the Chase that day, as Kate knew. 
She and Mr. Mat had met him riding down the hill near the 
ivy bridge over the Lindisfarn brook, as they were returning 
from Sillmouth. God grant that nothing decisive had passed 
between him and Margaret that day! Kate thought that 
nothing ’ could have happened, or Margaret would doubtless 
have rushed into her room instantly on her return to tell her of 
it. But then Kate had only known her sister for a few months. 
And it may be that her security based on this presumption was 
not founded on a rock. 

Kate looked at her watch, and saw that her sad and painful 
musings had lasted more than two hours. It was time to 
dress for dinner ; and Margaret would doubtless be coming up 
stairs in a minute, if she were not already in her room. But 
there was no time now for the conversation that must take 


236 


LlxNfDISFARN CHASE. 


place between them, and which would necessarily be a lengthy 
one. It was best to defer it till they should again be alone 
together before going to bed. It was painful to Kate to have 
to sit with her sister through the evening with the conscious- 
ness of the blow it would be her duty to inflict; on Margaret, 
all unconscious the while of the evil coming upon her. She 
had a sort of unreasoned and unavowed, but none the less 
irresistible conviction, moreover, that the news of the change 
in her position would be a more dreadful and stunning blow to 
Margaret than it had been to herself, and the necessity of 
inflicting this blow was not the least part of the more instant 
and immediate cares and sorrows that were pressing upon her. 

She set about the work of dressing with that languid dis- 
taste for the exertion, which petty cares of the kind are apt to 
produce in those who are suffering from the pressure of serious 
trouble. Margaret came into her room before she was quite 
ready to go down, charmingly dressed as usual — for she had 
become quite reconciled to the pleasing toil of making habitu- 
ally an evening toilet — and evidently in high spirits. Kate 
was sure that her interview with Fred Falconer had been a 
pleasant one, at all events. For when by chance there were 
any thorns among Margaret’s roses, however few or small they 
might be, she was apt to give mimistakable evidence of having 
suffered from them for some time afterwards. 

“ What ! not ready, Kate ? And you are always lecturing 
me for being behindhand ! Why it is two hours or more since 
you came home. What have you been about ? And you seem 
to be all in the dumps, too.” 

“ My morning’s work at Sillmouth was not a pleasant one, 
you know,” said Kate, blushing with a sensation quite new to 
her, as the consciousness of playing the hypocrite with her 
sister, though only for a few hours, passed over her mind. 

“ And I’m sure I don’t see why you should meddle with such 
disagreeable people. I own, for my part, I do not think it a 
proper sort of thing at all. And it only shows what poor dear 
Madame de Renneville always used to say, that one never can 
step, were it only a hair’s breadth, out of one’s own proper 
sphere, without being punished for the indiscretion in some way 
or other.” 

“ But perhaps it is not always quite easy to know what is 
one’s proper sphere, and what are the limits of it,” said Kate, 
with a sigh, as she once again put a wet towel to her eyes, 
before going down stairs. ‘‘ Come, dear, I am ready now,” she 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


237 


added. “Let us go down. I must tell you all about my 
morning’s adventure before we go to bed to-niglit.” 

And then, for the first time in her life, Kate had to pass the 
evening in the family circle, with the heavy sense of a secret to 
be kept from all those dear and familiar friends, who had no 
secrets from her, with whose hearts she had ever had all in 
common. And the weight was very grievous to her. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

SILLSHIRE versus PARIS. 

At last the long evening wore itself to its close ; and the 
two Lindisfarn lasses went up to their adjoining rooms 
together. 

“ Now, then, Margaret,” said Kate, as they reached the top 
of the stairs together ; “ I must tell you all about my ride to 
Sillmouth this morning; I should have told you before, dear 
Sissy, if there had been any opportunity.” 

“Why! is there anything to tell that signifies ?” returned 
Margaret, opening her great handsome eyes in astonishment. 

“ Yes, there is a good deal to tell,” said Kate, with a sigh ; 
“come into my room with me, darling, or let me come into 
yours ; for we must have a long talk togethe;?.” 

“Xot very long, I hope, for I am very sleepy,” said 
Margaret, yawning ; “ but how strange you look, Kate ! 
What is it ? Is anything the matter ? ” 

“ You need not come up till we ring, Simmons,” said Kate, 
as Margaret followed her into her room. 

“You can go into my room, Simmons, and put my things 
into my drawers the while; for they are all over the room. I 
could not find the dress I wanted for dinner.” 

Simmons went as directed to repair the disorder in her 
wardrobe made by Miss Margaret, who was, as that experienced 


238 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE. 


lady’s-maid declared, a regular untidy one ; and Kate, before 
sitting down in the same cbair in front of her little drawing- 
table, which she had sate in during her two hours of medita- 
tion before dinner, shut the door of communication between 
the two rooms ; while Margaret, much wondering what was 
coming, and fearing a preachment on sundry small matters of 
which she was conscious, and which she surmised might not be 
altogether to her sister’s liking, installed herself in the large 
chair that stood before Kate’s toilet-table. 

“Miss Immy has been telling tales, I suppose!” thought 
she to herself. “ Who could have guessed that the old thing 
was spying all the time that she seemed fast asleep ? ” 

“You know that Winny begged me to go over to her at 
Sillmouth to see a poor man, who had been wounded in a fray 
with the coast-guard men, and who was lying in danger of 
death in her cottage ? ” began Kate. 

“ Yes, I know. And I must say that in your place, Kate, I ^ 
should not have dreamed of doing anything of the sort,” said ' 
Margaret, thinking it wise, in case Kate meditated a preach- 
ment, to be beforehand in occupying the attacking ground. ^ 

“ I think, dearest, that you would have done so in my place. 
You cannot feel, you know, towards Winny Pendleton, as I do ; 
and therefore you cannot tell how strongly I felt called upon to 
do as she wished. I assure you, it was a very unpleasant task ; 
though I little thought when I started on the errand, what a 
surprise was awaiting me 1 ” 

“ What was it ? ” asked Margaret, while her now thoroughly 
awakened curiosity expressed itself in her widely opened eyes. 

“ Do you ever remember to have heard, Margaret, that our 
uncle. Dr. Lindisfarn, once had a son?” asked Kate. 

“ Ko, never. I thought he never had had any children,” 
replied Margaret, with increasing astonishment. 

“You might very well never have heard of it; but our 
uncle had a son, called Julian. I can remember seeing him 
when a little girl. He was then a grown-up young man. All 
of a sudden he left Silverton, and we saw no more of him. 
He got into trouble of some sort. I believe he did something 
wrong. I do not know what the story was ; but I know there 
was great grief and sorrow about it. I believe it half broke 
poor Aunt Sempronia’s heart. But there was a great mystery 
on the subject ; and after he went away nobody ever spoke of 
him ; and it was as if he were dead. And after a time there 
came news that he was dead, really. He was killed, it was 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


239 


said, by the Red Indians in America. People declared that 
they saw him killed, and from that time till now, I have never 
heard his name mentioned. But Margaret, darling,” continued 
Kate, taking her sister’s hand in hers, and looking earnestly 
into her face ; “ the wounded man, whom I was called to see 
at Sillmouth this morning, was our cousin Julian ! ” 

“ You don’t say so ! ” said Margaret; “how very odd ! ” 

“ It was a strange chance, indeed ! — the stranger that it 
luas a chance,” replied Kate ; “ for nobody knew, and nobody 
knows now who he is ; and he had nothing to do with sending 
for me. But he happened to hear Winny call me by my name, 
and then he discovered himself to me.” 

“And it was all untrue, then, about his being killed in 
America ? said Margaret. 

“ It was a mistake. He was nearly killed, but not quite ; 
and he recovered. He did not tell me the particulars of the 
story.” 

“ And now he is come back to his father ! But how did he 
chance to be wounded with the smugglers ? ” asked Margaret, 
whose curiosity, excited by the strangeness of the story, did 
not seem to be mixed with any other emotion. 

“He had joined the smugglers in their venture, as a means 
of coming over here from France secretly ; but he was not 
coming to his father ; he does not wish anybody to know that 
he is here ; and from the manner in which he spoke, I fear that 
much trouble and distress would come of its being discovered 
that he is in the neighbourhood.” 

“ Why did he tell you who he was, then ? ” asked Margaret. 

‘ “ Partly, as it seemed to me, as far as I could understand 
him, because, though he was very anxious that it should not be 
known that he was in Sillshire, as long as he lived, he wished 
that it should be known who he was after his death; and 
partly, because he felt how needful it is that we should be made 
aware that he was not killed by the Indians, as was supposed. 
I made a condition witli him, that I should tell you ; but I 
promised faithfully to tell nobody else, and I promised for you 
that you would keep the secret also.” 

“ Why is it so needful for us to know that he was not killed ? 
If he does not mean to come back to his father, why could He 
want any of us to know that he is alive ? I do not see any 
good in our knowing it,” said Margaret, raising her eyebrows 
with a little shrug. 

Kate’s heart failed hei as she answered : 


240 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Don’t you see, dear Margaret, the difference it makes to 
you and me ? Don’t you perceive that if our cousin Julian is 
alive neither you nor 1 are heirs to our father’s property ? ” 

Margaret’s habitual paleness became lividness as she said : 
“ ISTonsense, Kate ! It can’t be true ! Do you believe that 
people’s fortunes can go backwards and forwards in that way ? 
If that were the case, how could any man know what a girl’s 
fortune was ? Besides, the property belongs to our father. 
Do you suppose that anything can touch our doiff ” 

“ Dearest Margaret, I fear it is but too clear that if Uncle 
has a son, the daughters of my father do not inherit the pro- 
perty. The lands of Lindisfarn go to the male heirs of my 
grandfather.” 

“ And what then do we inherit ? What is our dot to come 
from ? ” asked Margaret, while a dreadful spasm was clutching 
her heart with an icy grip. 

“ Alas ! Sister dear, if there is a male heir to the property, 
we have no inheritance. There is no source from which any 
dower for us, as it is called in English, can come.” 

“ It is too horrible to be true,” said Margaret, looking and 
feeling as if she must fall from her chair. “ I cannot believe 
it. It is too wicked !” 

“ But, dearest Margaret, ivlio is wicked ? Nobody has done 
anything they ought not to have done. According* to the law, 
Uncle Theophilus having a son comes to the same thing as if 
PajDa had a son. That is all. Everybody knows that if we 
had a brother, we should not be heiresses to the estate.” 

“It is horribly wicked!” said Margaret, as the tears 
gathered in her eyes ; “ the law is abominably wicked, — the 
law of. this vile, barbarous country 1 ” 

“ Oh Margaret, Margaret 1 don’t say such shocking words ! 
Think that it is England, Sillshire, our own native land !” 
remonstrated Kate, vvho was almost as much scandalized as if 
her sister had spoken of their own father in similar terms. 

“ I hate England 1 It is a vile, horrid country, to make 
such wicked laws ; I don’t believe it can be true ! ” said 
Margaret, now fairly sobbing, and with the inconsistency of 
passion. 

“ It is very dreadful to me to hear you speak so, Margaret I 
But I don’t wonder at your feeling it hard. It is hard ; — very 
hard, because of the disappointment and the false expectation. 
But that is not the fault of the law, nor of England.” 

“It is the fault of this bad and wicked man, who was 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


241 


obliged to go away, and who pretended he was dead, and now 
comes back to rob us of our father’s property.” 

“ It is not his fault that we are not heiresses ; nor is it his 
fault, though it arises out of his fault, that we have been led 
into error,” said clear-headed, direct- minded Kate. “ Poor 
Julian did not, as you say, Margaret, pretend to be dead. If 
fault there were in the matter, it was in those who believed his 
death on insufficient grounds.” 

“ You have no feeling, Kate : — no feeling at all ! ” sobbed 
Margaret, “ to talk in such a way. I say it is wicked, horribly 
wicked that poor girls should be robbed of their own father’s 
fortune in such a way ! And I say it is a vile, hateful country, 
where such things can be done. And I love France a thousand 
times better, and always did, and always shall, — a thousand, 
thousand times ! a thousand, thousand times, I do ! I hate 
England, and all the people in it ! ” cried Margaret, in the 
impotence of her rage. She was suffering pain ; and the first 
impulse of some natures, when they suffer, is to inflict, if it be 
within their power, pain on others. Margaret did feel just 
then, that she hated England ; but the passionate assertion of 
it was prompted by the bad instinct that would fain avenge on 
Kate the pain she was suffering. 

“ Dear Sister ! ” said Kate, taking her hand, and looking 
into her face with the tenderest sympathy ; “ I do feel for you ! 
It is very, very hard to bear ! You will not speak as you do 
now, when you have time for reflection.” 

“Yes, I shall ! I shall always speak so ; it is right to speak 
so ! It is -wicked. And I hate everything that is wicked ! 
And so would you too if you were good yourself. Didn’t I tell 
you that no good could come of your going to see smugglers, 
and vulgar people ? And now see what has come of it ! ” said 
Margaret, in a bitterly reproachful tone. 

“ Nay, Sister dear ! what has come of my visit to Sillmouth 
is not that we are no longer heiresses of the Lindisfarn 
property, but only that we know the fact that such is the case. 
And that is evidently an advantage ;... and perhaps a very 
great blessing ! Don’t you see, Margaret, that it is so ? ” con- 
tinued Kate, after a pause, looking earnestly into her sister’s 
face. 

“A blessing to know this horrible misfortune? Are you 
mad, Kate, or are you only mocking me?” said Margaret, 
casting a passionately reproachful glance at her sister from 
amid her tears. 

Id 


242 


IINDISFARN CHASE, 


^‘Not mad, dear Margaret. But just think a little what the 
consequences of not knowing our position with regard to our 
expectations of fortune might be ! It is bad enough, — very, 
very grievous and distressing, that others should not be equally 
well aware of it. And I trust that ere long there may be no 
necessity for further concealment on the subject. But it might 
be very much worse, if we were ourselves ignorant of the fact. 
Don’t you see this ? ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean ! I only know that I have 
been robbed, and wronged, and shamefully, most shamefully 
treated. Poor Madame de Benneville ! How little did she 
think what fate she was sending me to in England ! ” 

It was difficult for Kate, amid her own distress, and in her 
anxiety to lead her sister to contemplate the subject of their 
disinheritance with reference to the circumstances that had 
pushed themselves into the foreground in her own mind, — it 
was difficult for her to listen with equanimity, to speculations 
as to what Madame de Benneville might have thought about 
the matter. She strove, however, to do so ; having at all costs 
to bring Margaret to the consideration of the matter from 
that point of view which appeared to her the most urgently 
to require immediate attention. She felt considerable difficulty 
in doing this. A tingling blush on her cheek had been simul- 
taneous with the first birth in her own pure, loyal, and uncom- 
promisingly honest mind, of the thought that it behoved her 
to guard a man, who had never spoken to her of love, from 
the danger of doing so under a false impression of her position. 
Maidenly feeling had produced the blush, and had caused the 
pain which had accompanied it. But it had not blinded her 
to the straightforward honest duty of preventing a step which 
in her heart she knew to be imminent, and which she knew 
was about to be taken by one under a delusion. She had suf- 
fered no sentimental mock-modesty to stand in the way of her 
being honest and true for herself; and now she had to be 
equally frank in the case of her sister. But she ‘did not the 
less feel the difficulty. And Margaret’s apparent obtuseness to 
any idea of the sort, made this difficulty greater to her. It 
seemed as if she must have been over bold to be struck at 
once by the possibility of a danger, which did not apparently 
suggest itself to the more delicately unconscious mind of her 
sister. Yet it was certain to her that Margaret had fully as 
much reason to apprehend such a misfortune as she had. She 
was perfectly well aware that it was quite as likely that Mar- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


243 


garet miglit any day receive an offer from Falconer as she her- 
self from Ellingham. Could it be that Margaret was wholly 
unconscious of this ? Was it necessary for her to open her 
sister’s eyes to the fact, as well as suggest to her that the fact 
constituted, under the circumstances, a danger, which it was 
her duty to guard against ? 

‘‘ But the worst of the matter. Sissy dear,” she began, again 
taking the hand which Margaret in her petulant outburst of 
temper had snatched from her, “ the worst of the matter by 

far, is that this unfortunate change in our positions may 

you know, darling may have an influence on others as well 

as ourselves.” 

Margaret turned her eyes sharply on her sister’s face with a 
look of shrewd and keen observation for an instant before she 
replied. 

“ You mean that girls without a dot have no chance of mar- 
rying creditably ! Of course I know that ! There was no need 
of casting that in my teeth. I know what you are thinking 
of, Kate. You have Lady Farnleigh’s six thousand pounds to 
fall back on. It is at least something. I have nothing ! 
There is no need to remind me of it.” 

“ Oh, Margaret, Margaret ! ” cried Kate, inexpressibly shocked, 
and in the voice of one who is assailed by a sudden spasm of 
bodily pain, and the silently rising tears filled her eyes as she 
looked into her sister’s face with a piteous expression of remon- 
strance against the cruelty of this speech. 

“Well, you know, that must make a great difference. It 
would be affectation to pretend to forget it,” rejoined Margaret, 
feeling some little compunction for the brutality of the words 
which had given Kate such a sharp pang. “ But at all events,” 
she continued, “ we have the advantage of a good appearance 
for the present. The main point is, when girls have no fortune, 
to keep the fact from being generally known, as far as possible. 
And in this respect, at least, our position is a favourable one. 
For it does not seem to enter into the plans of this h^rible 
cousin to make his existence known for the present, ^ any 

rate. So that we shall at all events have a respite, and 

who knows ! ” 

Kate gazed at her sister as she thus spoke, and after she 
had finished, with absolutely speechless astonishment, which 
sank gradually to a persuasion that there was some misundei% 
standing between them somehow* 


244 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Don’t you understand me?” said Margaret, with petulant 
impatience, in answer to her sister’s look. 

“ I think, Margaret, we don’t understand each other,” replied 
Kate, whose brain felt confused by a whole host of conflicting 
thoughts and feelings, “ I cannot suppose that you could wish 

that any man should” (here the tingling blush came again 

into Kate’s cheek) “ should ask you to be his wife,” Kate 

went on more boldly, her steel-true honesty of purpose coming 
to her aid ; “ under the impression that your position as regards 
fortune and expectations was different from what it really is. 
You would wish, undoubtedly, to prevent such an error by 
every possible means in your power. You would wish to save 
him from the unfair and very embarrassing necessity of de- 
claring himself unable to carry out an intention formed under 
different circumstances, and yet more to save yourself from the 
possibility of the horrible suspicion that you sought to incite a 
proposal by letting it be supposed that you had advantages to 
offer which you knew that you had not. Think of the horror 
of such a position, Margaret ! ” said Kate, as the burning blood 
flushed afresh all over her neck and face and forehead. 

“ Indeed, Kate,” returned her sister, “ I think we do misun- 
derstand each other. We look at all these questions from such 
different points of view. I confess that to my mind, and with 
the principles in which I have been brought up, there is a 
degree of indelicacy in a girl thus setting herself to weigh 
and estimate the motives that may lead a gentleman to pay 
his addresses to her. You know, my sister, that the English 
are considered to be a nation of shopkeepers, and to look at 
everything with a trading eye. And in what you say, I see the 
truth of the reproach. In France a demoiselle hien elevee never 
meddles with any of these considerations. All such matters 
are arranged by her parents ; and it is surely more proper and 
more delicate to leave it to them. And I must own that the 
insular shopkeeping spirit, which shows itself in calculations 
beforehand as to how much of the love of a fidur may have 
been excited by your fortune, and how much by your own heaux 
yeux^ is to my feeling revolting.” 

“I don’t think, Margaret,” said Kate, after a minute’s 
thoughtful pause, and feeling a httle puzzled and much pained ; 

that I quite follow your ideas. For my own part, I don’t so 
much care whether the spirit in which we have to act in this 
matter is a shopkeeping spirit or not, so that it be a straight- 


Lbi'DISFAUN CUASE. 


245 


forward, honest one. I had much rather — God knows how 
much rather ! — avoid, as far as one can, speculating on the sup- 
posed intentions of this or that man in a question of this sort, 
and very much more abstain from taking any active step in 
consequence of such suppositions. The course which a girl 
should pursue in these matters seems to me a simple one 
enough. I think she should take care to appear to everybody 
to be what she really is in all respects, and, until her love is 
sought for, take no other care. And generally as regards the 
external matters of fortune, this is the simplest and easiest 
thing in the world. But we are placed in an exceptional and 
very painful position. If we were at liberty to disclose Julian’s 
secret openly, our course would be at least easy and clear. If 
we had neither of us,” — here the rich blush returned ; “ any 

reason to imagine that that our position as regards fortune 

was of any interest to anybody in particular, we might be con- 
tent to allow the error of everybody with respect to us to con- 
tinue for the short time that Julian’s safety — for I suppose his 
safety is in question — will require the secret to be kept. But 
if that is not the case, Margaret,” Kate continued, looking 
fixedly and with earnest seriousness into her sister’s face ; “ if 
we either or both of us have in our inmost hearts reason to 
suppose that there is anyone to whom the question of our 
heiressship to these estates may be a matter of great impor- 
tance, you will surely agree with me that, whether it be dic- 
tated by a shopkeeping spirit or not, what we ought to have 
most earnestly at heart, should be to find some means of pre- 
venting that somebody from saying or doing anything, which 

they might, perhaps, not do, if they were aware of the 

truth.” 

“ I, for my part, even if I could agree to all you have been 
saying,” replied Margaret, “have not the remotest idea, thank 
Heaven, that I am a subject of interest to any man who would 
be mercenary enough to be influenced in his feelings by the 
amount of fortune I may possess.” 

“ I hope so, with all my heart, dearest ; but you see at once, 
that if that is the case, the knowledge of your want of fortune, 
when it shall become known, will make no difference ; and 
you will be spared the horror of having received and accepted 
such a proposal when made under an impression which you 
knew to be delusive.” 

“ But if the fact of this odious man’s existence must not bo 
revealed ? ” urged Margaret. 


246 


linbisfaen chase. 


“ TJmt makes tke difficulty and the cruel embarrassment ! ” 
returned Kate ; “ the only thing I can think of, is to try to act 

in such a manner that nothing may be said to give no 

opportunity to discourage anything that might lead to 

to anything of the sort,’^ said the poor girl, twisting her hands 
together in the extremity of her distress and embarrassment. 
“One thing is quite clear,’^ she continued after a pause, and 
speaking more energetically ; “ That if unfortunately any pro- 
posal were made to either of us before we are at liberty to 
reveal the truth, it must be met by a rejection.” 

“On what ground, pray?” asked Margaret, shortly. 

“Ah! that makes the misery of it! We can assign no 
ground. It is horrible in any case not to be able to tell the 
truth ; and worst of all in such a case as that. It would be 
absolutely necessary to refuse, and absolutely impossible to give 
the real reason for refusing. And this is what makes it so 
very, very much to be prayed for, that no such question may 
be raised before we are at liberty to tell the truth to all the 
world. One thing only is quite beyond doubt ; namely, that a 
rejection could be the only answer. Think what it would be 
to accept such a proposal, made in the persuasion that it was 
offered to the heiress of Lindisfarn, and accepted by you with 
the knowledge that you were no such thing ! I think it would 
kill me on the spot ! ” 

“ You have very high-flown sentimental notions, Kate. 
Do you mean to tell me now, in earnest, that if Captain 
Ellin gh am were to offer to you to-morrow morning, you should 
refuse him ? ” 

“Most unquestionably I should,” said Kate, while a cold 
thrill shot through her heart at the thought of it. 

“ And without telling him any reason, or at least with- 
out telling him your real reason for doing so ? ” pursued Mar- 
garet* 

“ I should. How could I do otherwise ? I should at least 
know that the time would come, when he would know the real 

reason no, I donT mean that; perhaps, he would not 

ever know that ! But at least I should have saved him from 
forming an engagement under a mistaken notion, and I should 
have saved myself from the intolerable suspicion that it was 
possible that I wished him to do so. Of course, Margaret, you 
would be obliged to do the same ? ” 

“ I can’t say what I should do ! I can’t calculate and arrange 
beforehand, as coldly as you do, Kate, what I should say on 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 247 

such an occasion. The most delicate and proper course, I 
believe, would be to refer to Papa for an answer.” 

“ But not when you know that there are material circum- 
stances of which Papa is ignorant,” urged Kate. 

“Beally, Kate, I don’t know what I should do. But I own 
I do not see the necessity of debating what course I ought to 
pursue if an offer should be made to me, which never has been 
made, and which it is not likely ever will be made ! ” 

“Oh, Margaret ! ” 

“Besides, what is the use of all this, if, as you say, this 
Julian is dying? If he dies, all this trouble and misfortune 
has passed over.” 

“ But in the first place, Margaret, I don’t like to build hopes 
upon my poor cousin’s death ; in the second place, even if he 
were to die, the mischief that I dread either for you or for 
myself, may arise first; and in the third place, although he 
said he was dying — and when I first saw him I thought that 
certainly he must be, he looked so ghastly — still, before I came 
away, I began to have hopes that he might recover. He had 
seen nobody but old Bagstock — he is an old doctor at Sill- 
mouth, who is good for nothing — but I sent Dr. Blakistry to 
him, who is a first-rate surgeon, and I do not think it all un- 
likely that his life may be saved.” 

“ It would be much better for everybody if he were to die ? ” 
said Margaret. 

“ Oh, Margaret, you must not talk so ! It seems like murder 
to wish that another person may die ! Besides, I am not sure 

I don’t understand the matter but he said something 

about his death not making any difference to us. Perhaps he 
may have sold or in some way made away with his right to 
the property.” 

“ Good heavens, Kate ! Could he do that ? ” 

“ I don’t know, I am very ignorant of all such matters, cer- 
tainly he did say that his death would make no difference ; 
and I understood him to allude to the inheritance of the 
estates.” 

“ It is very, very dreadful, and I declare ” 

“ What were you going to say ? ” asked Kate, for Margaret 
broke off her sentence in the middle. 

“ Never mind ! I don’t know what I was going to say. It’s 
time to go to bed ; and I want to think over the shocking news 
you have given me.” 

And Margaret as she spoke go tup from her chair, and taking 


248 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


up her candlestick from Kate’s toilet-table, turned to go to her 
own room. 

“ When do you think you are likely to hear the result of the 
visit of this doctor you have sent to our cousin ? ” she asked, 
as she was leaving the room. 

“ I hoped I might have heard to-night. To-morrow morning 
no doubt I shall get a message,” replied Kate. 

‘‘ Of course you will tell me directly.” 

Of course. But oh, Margaret dear, do not let your heart 
wish for the death of this unfortunate man ! ” 

“ It seems to me that we are the unfortunates, rather ! Good 
night. We shall probably know something in the morning.” 

“ Good night, dear ! And oh, Margaret, do think over the 
absolute necessity of avoiding any proposal, while all remains 
in doubt and we are bound to secrecy, and of refusing it if 
unfortunately it should come ! ” 

“ Yes ! I will think of it. Good night ! ” 

And so the sisters parted for the night ; and no doubt Mar- 
garet did meditate long and deeply, while probably some not 
unpardonable tears wetted her pillow, on the important tidings 
that had been communicated to her. But it may be surmised 
that her night thoughts did not tend exactly in the direction 
Kate would have wished. Indeed, certain glimpses into the 
interior of Margaret’s heart and mind, which had been afforded 
to Kate by some passages of the above conversation, had been 
the second painful shock her mind had undergone that da3\ 
She felt that there were many points, and, indeed, whole ranges 
of subjects, on which there was neither sympathy nor possi- 
bility of agreement between them. But she was still' unaware 
of the wide divergence of feeling and opinion, and of the 
amount of difference in the course of action which this might 
lead to, in the important circumstances now before them. 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


249 


CHAPTER XXiy. 

THE LINDISFARN STONE. 

As Kate was going across the hall into the breakfast-room, 
with more of heavy care on her brow and trouble in her heart 
than she had ever known a short day or two ago, the following 
note from Sillmonth, which had been brought up by a mes- 
senger early that morning, was put into her hand. 

It was from Dr. Blakistry, and ran thus : 

“My dear Miss Lindisfarn, 

“ Mrs. Pendleton — your old nurse, as she tells me, and a 
very decent sort of woman, though a smuggler’s wife — has 
requested that before leaving her house I would write to you 
my report of the patient I have just been visiting. I am 
happy to tell you — though I trust, my dear young lady (and 
you will forgive an old man for saying so much), I trust and 
suppose, that you have no interest in him beyond that of 
simple humanity — that he is likely to do well and recover. 
He fancied that he was dying ; the result of great loss of 
blood and consequent weakness and depression, and of the 
shock to the nervous system. With due care, and a common 
amount of prudence, he will, I doubt not, be back again in 
La helle France in a month’s time, and will, I hope, stay there ; 
for though I saw enough to make it evident to me, that he 
does not belong to the same class of life as the men with 
whom he has been associating, I did not see anything to lead 
me to think the gentleman an acquisition to Sill shire. 

“ Believe me, my dear Miss Lindisfarn, 

“ Very faithfully yours, 

“ James Blakistry.’’ 

Kate hurried up stairs again to show the note to Margaret, 
who had not yet left her room. 


250 


LINDISFARN CHASi). 


“ So that cliance is gone ! said Margaret, in much de- 
pression of sjhrits, and looking as if she had passed a sleepless 
night. 

“ Oh, Margaret ! we ought to be thankful that the tempta- 
tion to wish for this poor cousin’s death has been removed 
from us.” 

‘‘ You see what the doctor says. He does not seem to have 
been prepossessed in his favour by any means.” 

“ But, Margaret, another part of the note is most important 
to us. Do you observe Dr. Blakistry says that he may get 
well enough to return to France in a month ? It will be a 
whole month, therefore, before we are at liberty to tell the fact 
which will make our own position known to everybody. This 
is very, very hard. It is dreadful ! ” 

“ Yes ! it will be a month,” said Margaret, with a thoughtful 
rather than with a distressed expression of face ; “ before we 
are at liberty to make it known that we are portionless ! A 
month is a long time.” 

“ Dreadful ! It makes me almost desperate to think of it ! 
How will it be possible to avoid ” 

‘‘ To avoid what ? ” said Margaret, pettishly. 

“ What I was talking to you of last night, you know, 
dear ! ” said Kate ; while a misgiving as to her sister’s 
feelings and ideas upon the subject, almost as painful to her as 
any of the many painful phases of the situation, came across 
her mind. 

“ Do you know, Katey dear,” returned Margaret, “ it seems 
to me that we must each of us manage our matters in the 
miserably unfortunate circumstances which have fallen upon 
us, according to her own light ; on one thing you may rely ; — 
and it seems to me that it is all you ought to ask of me ; — I 
will faithfully keep my promise to you. You may be sure that 
the secret is safe with me. I shall not mention the fact of our 
cousin Julian’s existence to a single soul, till you tell me I am 
free to do so ! ” 

“ Of course I know that you will keep your promise. But, 
Margaret dear, that is not the point 1 am anxious about. You 
know that is not it ! ” 

“ Well, as to the rest, I must say it seems to me that the 
best plan would be for us not to interfere with each other. 
The two cases, you must remember, are widely different. 
Captain Ellingham — I presume it is for him that you are so 
desperately alarmed — is a poor man. Lady Farnleigh, you 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


251 


know, very properly told us so when she first brought him 
here. Whether she would not have done better and acted a 
more friendly part under the circumstances, to have abstained 
from bringing him here at all, is another matter. I, at all 
events, have no reason to complain of her imprudence in doing 
so ! But Mr. Falconer — for I won’t pretend not to understand 
that you are thinking of him, in your sermons to me — 
Mr. Falconer is not a poor man — very far from it ! And 
that makes such a difference as to change entirely all the 
considerations that ought to govern one’s conduct in the 
matter.” 

‘‘ But oh, Margaret, you would not have him propose to you, 
thinking you a heiress, to find out his mistake afterwards? 
It would be impossible for you to accept him under such cir- 
cumstances. It would be dishonouring to you, and to all of 
us !” 

“ You go upon the supposition, Kate, that Mr. Falconer is 
as mercenary as ” 

Kate gave a start that was almost a bound ; and there was 
a something in the glance of her eye that Margaret had never 
seen there before, and that probably had never been there 
before ; — a something that warned her to stop short in what 
she was saying ; and to continue : 

“ That is, I don’t mean to express any opinion of any- 

body else ; I only mean that you argue — you must admit you 
do — upon the supposition that Falconer is actuated by mer- 
cenary motives in his attentions to me. Kow I don’t think 
that is fair, or charitable, or delicate. I entirely refuse to 
believe anything of the kind. It would have been impossible 
for me to have listened to him for an instant otherwise. For 
my owm heart revolts so instinctively from any mixing of 
worldly considerations with matters that should be regulated 
by the purest impulses of the affections only, the whole of my 
nature rebels so strongly against the shopkeeping spirit in 
which, as I have always heard, such things are regarded in 
England, that I cannot submit to be guided by any maxims 
drawn from such notions.” 

“ That seems all very right,” said Kate, sadly, and some- 
what mystified by the grandiloquent sentimentalities of 
Margaret’s oration, delivered with a tone and manner which 
would have compelled Madame de Benneville to have clasped 
her instantly to her bosom, if she could have heard it, — ‘‘but 
yet,” she added, timidly, 


252 


LTNDISFAHN CHASE. 


‘‘ There is the bell ! interrupted Mr.rgaret, glad to avoid 
what she knew Kate was going to say, just as well, or perhaps 
more clearly than Kate knew it herself ; “ we must make haste 
down, or we shall be late, and Papa will be angry.’^ 

“ Yes, we must go ! ” said Kate, ruefully ; “ and mind, 
dear, we must keep the best countenance we can. It is very 
difficult to have trouble at heart, and not show it in one’s 
face ! ” 

“I daresay it is at first, to those who have not had the 
advantage of the best education,” said Margaret, “ but Madame 
de Kenneville always insisted on the necessity of being able to 
do so, to a jeune personne hieii eleveeJ^ 

Kate did oiot say, “Hang Madame de Kenneville,” or any 
feminine equivalent for that masculine mode of relieving the 
feelings ; and I do not know that I have any stronger evidence 
of the angelic sweetness of her disposition to lay before the 
reader. 

So the two girls went down to breakfast ; and Kate had to 
stand a fire of questions from her father about the wounded 
stranger ; and declarations that he should be obliged at last to 
forbid her visiting Deep Creek Cottage, for that that fellow 
Pendleton would end by making the county too hot to hold him ; 
and that if he did, it would be a good riddance for Winifred ; 
that things were coming to a pass which would make it ab- 
solutely necessary for the gentlemen of the. county to set their 
faces more decidedly against smuggling, Vtc., etc. ; most of 
which the jolly old gentleman had said from time to time 
for the last twenty years, and notwithstanding which, his 
fine old florid benevolence-beaming face, with its adornment 
of silver locks, remained set much as it ever had been, and 
was likely to continue set, as long as he was lord of Lindis- 
farn. 

“ Any commands, ladies ? ” said Mr. Mat, as ^ J.;^ey were 
leaving the breakfast-table. “What is it to be tly^^^l^rning. 
Miss Kate, a gallop over the common to Weston t think 
you seem to want one, you look as if this Sillmouth business 
had fretted you.” 

“No, thank you, Mr. Mat. Birdie has done her twenty 
miles yesterday and the day before. I think I shall have o^e 
of my rambles in the woods this morning.” 

“ And I was going to try if I could coax Mr. Mat to drive 
me over to Silverton. I promised Aunt Sempronia that I 
would pay her a visit.” 


f 


LINDTSFARN CHASE. 


253 


“ Of course I’m ready, Miss Margaret,” said Mr. Mat, with 
not the best grace in the world ; “ but if another day would do 
as well, there is a matter I wanted to see to at Farmer Nixon’s, 
at Four-tree Hollow ” 

“ Come now, Mr. Mat,” returned Margaret, utterly throwing 
away upon the savage, a glance, which she deemed, and which 
ought to have been, irresistible ; “ you forgot all about Farmer 
Nixon and Four-tree tiollow, when it was a question of riding 
with Kate.” 

“Ah, but Miss Kate you see,” returned Mr. Mat, pausing 
when he had got thus far, and scratching his black scrubbing- 
brush of a head with the end of one fore-finger, while he looked 
at Margaret with a naivete utterly unconscious of any offence in 
what he was saying, pointing at the same time with his thuml) 
towards the door by which Kate had left the room ; “ Miss 

Kate, you see is Miss Kate; and there is not another such 

between this and London ! ” 

Never had Madame de Renneville’s golden rule respecting 
advantages of the VoUo sciolto, jpensieri stretti, to ti jeime personne 
hien elevee been more necessary to her pupil, than while she re- 
plied with a smile of undiminished svv^eetness : 

“ Oh ! I know I must not pretend to rival Kate in your 
affections, Mr. Mat ” 

“Nay, Miss Margaret,” replied the untameable savage, 
shaking his head ; “ there’s not the lass, nor the lad either, 
above ground, wtic/ can do that ; for I do love her better 
than all the world! But if you have promised her lady- 
ship in the Close ” 

“ Yes, indeed, Mr. Mat ; I know my aunt is expecting me,” 
replied Margaret, who, during the past winter, had followed up 
the good impression she had made in the Close at her first 
visit, and had made many visits to Silverton in consequence. 
Indeed had in that manner found the means of doing’ a 
considr ;ie portion of the flirtation with Fred Falconer, which 
had been requisite for the advancing of matters between them, 
to the point at which we found them, when making the survey 
for our carte de tendre in the present Spring. It was true, 
therefore, in a certain sense, for Margaret to say that her aunt 
v/as expecting her, inasmuch as she certainly expected to see 
her in the Close again ere long. But it was not true that any 
special arrangement had been made for Margaret to come to 
Silvej?ton on that day. 

“Well, then,” said Mr. Mat, in reply to Margaret’s de- 


254 


LTNDISFAEN CHASE. 


claration to that effect, “of course I’ll drive you over. I 
suppose I had better order the gig round at once ? ” 

“ I heard you asking Mr. Mat to drive you over to Silver- 
ton,” said Kate, who was putting on her walking things when 
Margaret came up stairs to prepare for her visit to Silverton ; 
“I should hardly have wished, I think, in your place, to go 
there to-day, if I could have avoided it. Of course you will 
take care to say no word that might lead to the discovery of our 
secret. It will be best to say nothing about the smuggling, or 
the wounded man, or the fight, or anything about it. Neither 
my uncle nor Aunt Sempronia will in all probability have 
heard a word of it.” 

“ I will take care,” said Margaret. 

“ And Margaret, dearest,” added Kate, looking earnestly and 
beseechingly at her sister ; “ of course it will be wise under 
the circumstances to avoid an^^ chance of seeing Fred Fal- 
coner ! ” 

“ I never seek to see him,” replied Margaret, with a toss of 
her head ; “ how can you suppose that I should do such a 
thing ? ” 

“ I don’t suppose you do, Sissy dear ; but I think, that as 
things are, it would be prudent to seek, all you possibly can, 

not to see him. Think how you would be distressed if if 

he were to say anything, you know ! ” 

“ I know what I am about, Kate ! ” said the jeune 'personne 
hien elevSe, who did such credit to her Parisian training. 

Pretty much depends, as Dick Wyvill the groom had justly 
remarked, on “ the manner in which they are broke.” 

So Kate went out for her solitary ramble among the woods 
above the house, and Margaret got into the gig with Mr. Mat 
for her drive to Silverton. The former directed her steps in 
the same direction as she had done on the afternoon previous 
to the great storm, during which the Saucy Sally had escaped 
from the Petrel. Now, as then, she gradually climbed the 
hill by the zig-zagging wood paths, till she reached the 
naked rock jutting out from the soil composed of slaty dehris 
and vegetable mould, the remains of many a generation of 
oaks, that formed the topmost height of Lindisfarn brow. 
Upon the former occasion she had gone thither with the 
intentional purpose of looking out at the signs of the weather. 
Now it was an inlook into her own heart that mainly in- 
terested her, and for the sake of which she had come out 
for a solitary ramble in the woods | aud she wandered up 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 255 

to the summit of the brow, careless of the direction she was 
taking’. 

The huge limestone mass, which formed the Lindisfarn stone, 
as it was called ]paT excellence^ rose out of the earth by a gradual 
and moss-grown slope on the side looking away from Lindisfarn 
house, from the gently swelling wooded hill that sloped down 
to Lindisfarn brook, from Silverton, and from the coast. The 
other side, which looked towards all these places, formed, on 
the contrary, a precipitous little cliff in miniature, some fifteen 
or twenty feet in height. And the ground in front of it fell 
away at its foot in a steep declivity for a further height of 
another twenty feet or so, at the bottom of which grew the 
nearest trees. So that a person on the top of the Lindisfarn 
stone was on a vantage ground which enabled him to look over 
the thick forest, and to command a charming view of all the 
falling ground, and of the opposite side of the Lindisfarn brook 
valley up to the old tower of Silverton Castle, which could just 
be seen over the crest of the opposite hill. 

Kate climbed to the top of the stone, as she had done on 
many a former occasion, but never with so heavy and care- 
laden a heart before ; and sat herself down near the edge of it, 
facing the precipitous side and the well-known view over the 
woods and fields, which were to be hers no more. 

The lord of Lindisfarn was monarch of nearly all that he 
surveyed from the top of the Lindisfarn stone ; and the spot 
was one eminently calculated to suggest ideas connected with 
territorial proprietorship. But Kate had come thither with no 
leaning towards any such thoughts in her head. Her heart 
was full of troubles, which though taking their rise from the 
same source, pressed upon her immediately under a different 
aspect. 

Oh that she could hide herself, bury herself, lock herself up 
for the next month to come ! There, on the solitary Lindisfarn 
stone, she was safe for the passing hour. Would that it were 
possible to remain there ; where at least for the nonce she was 
secure from the dreaded danger of that pursuit, which had so 
often been — and she blushed as the confession passed through 
her mind — a source of happiness to her ! 

She had been sitting thus for some time, letting the minutes 
heap themselves up into hours, while she mused at one moment 
on a whole brainful of minute little projects for avoiding all 
chance of any such interview with Captain Ellingham as might 
give him an opportunity for saying the words she now so 


256 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


dreaded to hear; and then again on the manner in which it would 
behove her to comport herself, and on the words she would 
have to say, if that terrible misfortune, despite all her efforts to 
avoid it, should befal her. She tried to figure forth to herself 
the scene as it would take place, to imagine the words which 
he might be supposed to say, and those in which she would be 
compelled by cruel fate — ah, how cruel ! — to answer him. And 
as she placed it all on the stage of her imagination, she re- 
liearsed accurately enough at least one portion of the role, as 
she would in all probability play it ; — for she wept bitterly. 

Presently she was startled by the sound of voices among the 
trees beneath her, just within the edge of the forest, where it 
encircled the clear space occupied by the Lindisfarn stone ; and 
listening with head erect and bated breath, like a hare startled 
on her form, was able in the next minute to distinguish those 
of Captain Ellingham and old Brian Wyvill the pensioned ex- 
gamekeeper. 

“ There be the Lindisfarn stoan, zur ! she heard the latter 
say ; “ that be the highest ground in all the Lindisfarn land ; 
and vrom the tep o’ that stoan you may zee a’most all the 
estate. ’Tis a bewtiful zeat to zet on ; and Miss Kate 
comes up here time and again. I zems we shall vind her 
Ipere now.” 

And in the next minute the speaker, emerging with his com- 
panion from the edge of the wood, espied her on the top of the 
rock above them. 

“ There she be, zure enough, Capten ! Please, Miss Kate, 
Capten kem up to the Chase awanting vor tu speak tu ee, and 
as yew wos not tu house, I told un, I thot a cou’d vind ee ; zo 
we kem up the vorest together.” 

“ It’s a true, full, and particular account. Miss Lindisfarn. 
I did come up to the Chase on purpose to speak to you, and 
was very unwilling to return and leave my errand unsaid, 
and so ventured by the help of old Brian to start on an ex- 
ploring cruise in search of you. May I scale your fortress ? ” 

“ If you can find the way to do so,” replied Kate, striving to 
speak in her usual light-hearted tone, and hoping that he might 
lose some little time in finding the side by which the stone is 
accessible, and so give her a few moments to collect herself and 
dry her eyes. She strove hard to speak gaily, but there was a 
tremor in her voice, for her heart was beating as though it 
would force its way out from her bosom. For a moment she 
clung to an absurd hope that old Brian Wyvill would remain, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


257 


and make any tete-a-tete conversation impossible ; but in tbe 
next, she heard him tell Captain Ellingbam that he “ med walk 
ep tu the tep ev the stoan on tother zide ev it,” and saw him 
turn to go down the hill. 

Ellingham little thought, when he talked playfully of scaling 
her fortress, how nearly the words represented the true state of 
the case, and how much she would have given to have made it 
absolutely inaccessible to him. 

She had little doubt that the misfortune she had so much 
dreaded had fallen upon her already. If she had not been in 
such a nervous agony of fear lest Ellingham should propose to 
her under the present circumstances, she probably would not 
have felt so certain that it was coming. As it was, she had 
little doubt of it; and the fear of the bitter, bitter draught 
that was nearly at her lips, was so great as to suggest a mad 
and momentary thought of the possibility of escape from it by 
throwing herself oflP the rock from the front of it before her 
lover could reach the top of it from behind. 

Her lover ! Yes. Kate did not pretend to herself to have 
any doubt about it. There stands the account of her conversa- 
tion with Ellingham on the occasion of her attempt at bribery 
and corruption, fairly reported in a previous chapter. One 
does not find anything like love-making in it ! Lydia Languish 
could not scent the faintest odour of “ la helle passion ” in any 
part of the conversation. The combined ingenuity of Dodson 
and Fogg could not have extracted from it the faintest indica- 
tion of a compromising intention. Yet it was after that con- 
versation that Ellingham had felt as if he were walking on air, 
and had gone off in the gig triumphant and rejoicing. It was 
when she went up to her room to prepare for her ride to Sill- 
mouth, to carry the tidings of his utter refusal to comply with 
her wishes, that Kate had first felt the delicious certainty that 
he was hers, and hers only, for ever. 

Strange ! How poor imperfectly articulate half-dumb lovers 
do get to understand each other in some way, certainly deserves 
an enlightened naturalist’s attention. The ants, too, how 
curious is the way in which they evidently communicate 
intelligence, often of a complicated character to one another, 
apparently also in their case by the appropinquation of noses ! 
I suppose, however, that the ants have expressive eyes. Other- 
wise I have no conception how they manage their confabula- 
tions. 

Putting out of the question, however, the whole of that 

17 


258 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


intensely interesting* subject on which poor Kate so dreaded to 
hear Ellingham enter, there were topics enough on which it 
was very natural he might wish to speak to her. They had 
not met since that memorable conversation at the early break- 
fast-table. It was very intelligible that they should both wish 
to talk over the result of the events to which they were then 
looking forward. Nevertheless, Kate felt sure that Ellingham’s 
present errand was not merely to talk of smugglers and smug- 
gler hunting. She knew — why or how she knew, she could 
not tell — ^but she had not the slightest doubt that the misfor- 
tune, to the possibility of which she had been looking forward 
as the most terrible that could happen to her, had in reality 
fallen upon her. . Nor did she doubt or waver for an instant in 
her decision as to the only answer that it was possible for her to 
make to the communication that awaited her. If only she 
could have told him the truth ! — not all the truth — not the 
undeniable truth that she loved him with a passion that paled 
all else in life, even as a sunbeam pales the dull glow of fire 
among the ashes on a hearth half burned out — not this, but 
simply the truth respecting the vanishing of her worldly 
wealth ! Ear, *far better, infinitely better would it have been if 
that truth could have been made known to him, before he had 
set forth on the errand that had now brought him to the Lin- 
disfarn stone ! Failing this, it would have been an infinite 
relief to her to have been able to tell the truth now, and to 
attribute her rejection to its true motives. But to be obliged 
to answer him by an unmotived rejection — she, in her character 
of a wealthy heiress, to refuse her hand to the brave man, rich 
in honour, loyal truth, noble thoughts, and all the treasures of 
a loving, honest, manly heart — to be compelled the while to 
Jiide with jealous care every word, every action, every glance, 
that might betray the secret of that yearning love, which 
seemed to be intensified by the pity she felt for the pang she 
was about to inflict ; to crush deep down in the recesses of the 
beating little heart, that was bounding in its prison-house with 
longing to pour itself and all its thoughts and sorrows and 
troubles into his arms, every indication that she was not in 
truth the cold mammon-worshipping wordling’ that she must 
necessarily appear to him ; — this was indeed a cruel, cruel 
fate ! 

In a minute or two more she heard Captain ^ Ellingham 
coming up the sloping side of the rock behind her. She was 
Beafcedj as has been said, on the verge of the other side, looking 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


259 


towards Silverton, with her back turned to the side from 
which he was approaching. Every footfall, as he stepped 
hurriedly across the nearly flat top of the huge stone, seemef 
to strike a blow on her heart. She would have risen to meet 
him ; but it was utterly impossible for her to do so. She sat 
gazing over the prospect of woods and distant fields as if she 
were fascinated and rooted to the spot, till she heard his voice 
by her side. 


END OP PART VIII, 


LINDISJTARN CHASE. 


m 


ilart Nintf). 


CHAPTER XXV. 

“ TEARS FROM THE DEPTH OP SOME DIVINE DESPAIR ! 

“ Have you been able to forgive me yet, Miss Lindisfarn,’* 
said the voice close behind and above her in very gentle 
accents, “for the brutality with which I refused all your 
requests at the breakfast- table the other morning ? ” 

“ Pray don’t suppose. Captain Ellingham, that I am not fully 
aware, that it is I who need forgiveness for having ventured 
to make a suggestion to you, which involved a breach of duty. 
If I had not been worked up to a state of desperation by the 
terrors of my old nurse, I should not have been guilty of the 
indiscretion,” said Kate. 

The reply was a natural one enough, and altogether a 
sensible and proper one. Yet there was an undefinable some- 
thing in the tone or manner of it, which rung unpleasantly 
on Ellingham’s ear. It seemed to imply regret, that the inci- 
dent should have occurred at all ; whereas he looked back to 
it with delight, and treasured up every word, and dwelt on 
every accent with ecstasy. There was a cold, dry, formal tone, 
too, in the accent with which she spoke, that smote his ear, 
and distressed him. It was the result of the arduous struggle, 
that was going on within her, poor girl ! to save herself from 
bursting into tears, and to find strength and sense to answer 
him calmly and coherently. 

“But you see how needless Mrs. Pendleton’s terrors were ! 
If it were not that I am perfectly well convinced that Miss 
Lindisfarn’s approbation would be accorded to performance 
and not to breach of duty, I might be tempted to take credit for 
having let the smuggler slip through my fingers intentionally 


LINDTSFAEN CHASE. 


261 


in obedience to your wishes. The honest truth is, that I tried 
all I could to catch him, and he out-manoeuvred me ! ” 

“ I suppose it does not involve a very serious breach of the 
revenue laws to be glad that the matter ended as it did,” said 
Kate, feeling a little more tranquil, as a faint hope came to her, 
that perhaps after all, Ellingham’s present purpose was only 
to speak of the affair with the Saucy Sally. 

“ For you, at all events, Miss Lindisfarn, it is, I conceive, 
perfectly lawful to rejoice in the discomfiture of the Petrel ; 
but in my case it is not only the revenue laws, but a sailor’s 
imofessional pride, that stands in the way of my being heartily 
glad of the Saucy Sallifs escape. It was a superb feat of 
seamanship that that fellow Pendleton performed that night ; 
and an admirable boat the Saucy Sally must be.” 

“ I have heard she is a very first-rate sailer,” replied Kate. 

“ First-rate indeed. But what a pity it is that such a sea- 
man as that man must be, should be on the wrong side, and 
break the law instead of serving his country. There’s one 
thing at all events may be said for high custom duties, and 
the smuggling that arises from them ; — no honest trade ever 
did or will breed such seamen as smuggling does. I wish 
your protege, Miss Lindisfarn, could be persuaded to give it up. 
I shall surely catch him one of these days, or nights rather — 
or if not T, some other fellow on our side.” 

“ Yes ! I wish he would give it up, for poor Winifred’s 
sake,” said Kate. 

All this time Ellingham had been standing by her side, as 
she sat in that position she had first taken on the rock. He 
was by her side, but somewhat behind her ; and she, though 
she had turned her head a little towards him in speaking, had 
hardly raised her eyes to his face. He had begun the con- 
versation in the most natural manner, by speaking on the 
subject which was of course one of interest to both of them ; 
but he was now at a loss how to get from it to the real object 
of his visit. But he had come up to Lindisfarn that day, and 
had pursued the chase up to Lindisfarn brow, quite determined 
to do the deed he had, not without very considerable difficulty, 
made up his mind to do, before he returned. Captain Elling- 
ham was not the sort of man to leave undone that which he 
had determined to do. He had made up his mind to do it, I 
say, not without some difficulty, and after a good deal of con- 
sideration and hesitation. Perhaps he would not have done so 
at all, without the aid, comfort, and counsel of Lady Farnleigh. 


262 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


There is no means of knowing exactly what may have passed 
between them on the subject. But in all probability Lady 
Barnleigh, from the first, intended that her two favourites 
should make a match of it ; and there can be little doubt that 
it was due to her representations and advice that the poor 
Bevenue oflScer eventually determined to venture on offering to 
a heiress of two thousand a-year. Having made up his mind 
to do so, and having fixed on the present day and hour for 
accomplishing the purpose, difficult or not difficult, he meant 
now to do it. 

“ Yes ! I wish he would give it up for poor Winifred’s sake,” 
Kate had said in reply to his last remark, uttering the words 
in a more simple and natural tone than she had used before. 

“Mrs. Pendleton was a great favourite with you all at the 
Chase, I believe,” said Ellingham, advancing a step as he spoke 
and sitting down on the rock by her side. 

The movement revived all Kate’s worst suspicions and 
terrors. She would have risen from her seat, and at once 
commenced her walk back to the house, so as to have limited 
the time at his disposition to a few minutes only. But she felt 
her limbs trembling so, that she did not dare to make the 
attempt, and remained as if chained to the rock, with her 
eyes fixed unconsciously and unmeaningly on the little black 
square on the horizon representing the ruined keep of Silverton 
Castle. 

“ A favourite with you all, was she not ? ” repeated Elling- 
ham. 

“ Yes, we had all a great regard for her,” said Kate, still 
apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the distant view 
of Silverton Castle keep. 

“And it was for her sake, doubtless, that you were led to 
feel an interest in the fate of that bold smuggler and very 
excellent seaman, her husband.” 

“ Of course, naturally. Poor woman ! She was in a state 
of great anxiety and distress.” 

“ Of course. Her whole life must be one of anxiety.” 

“ It was a source of much trouble and regret to us, when 
she married ...... though her husband was not a smuggler 

then.” 

“ Did you object then, as her friends and protectors, to her 
marrying a sailor ? ” 

“ Oh no ! But there were then reasons for thinking that he 
was not a very steady man. I was too young at the time to 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


263 


understand much about it. But I know that my father and 
Mr. Mat were not altogether satisfied with Pendleton’s previous 
history.” 

“You would not have objected, then, to the marriage merely 
on the ground of the man’s being a sailor ? ” 

“Oh dear no?” said Kate, quite unsuspiciously; “if we 
could only have felt well assured that he would have continued 
steadily to follow his business as a boat-owner and fisherman, 
as he was when poor Winny married him, we should have been 
perfectly well contented.” 

“ Did it ever occur to you. Miss Lindisfarn, when thinking of 
the lot of your favourite nurse, to judge of her chances of 
happiness by putting the case to yourself? Did you ever ask 
yourself whether you could have been content to take for your 
partner in life, one whose vocation called him to pass much of 
his life on the ocean ? ” 

“ Is it likely,” replied Kate, whose heart began here^ again to 
beat with painful violence and rapidity ; “is it likely, do you 
think, that any such idea would present itself to a little girl of 
twelve years old ? ” 

And no sooner were the words out of her mouth, than she 
could have bitten off her tongue for speaking them ; for it 
flashed into her mind, that they might seem to imply that at 
her present more mature period of life, such a consideration 
might have occurred to her. It was, however, impossible to 
recal them ; and Captain Ellingham proceeded hurriedly. 

“But since that time the sight of poor Mrs. Pendleton’s 
troubles may have suggested such a thought to you.” 

“ Her troubles have arisen,” returned Kate, fencing, and, as 
she used the simple truth for the purpose, fencing very unskil- 
fully, “ not from being the wife of a sailor, but from being the 
wife of a smuggler.” 

And again, as soon as the words were past recal, she was 
horrified by the sudden thought, that they might seem to 
encourage the idea which she was anxious to discourage by 
every possible means. 

“ The thought was never suggested to you, then. Miss Lin- 
disfarn, whether or no you could yourself be ever induced to 
accept the love of a sailor ? ” said Ellingham, with a momen- 
tary glance into her eyes that would have said all he had to 
say to the most obtuse of Eve’s daughters, even if she had been 
previously wholly unsuspicious of his intent, and not without a 
little tremor in his voice. 


264 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Here it was then ! The dreaded moment was come ! What 
— what was she to reply ? Stave off the evil yet a moment 
longer by refusing to understand him ? She hated herself for 
the cowardly evasion ; but adopted it in the extremity of her 
distress and embarrassment. 

“ Girls, I fancy, rarely trouble their heads with speculations 
having reference to such matters, and on cases that do not seem 
to have any probability to commend them to their notice,” 
she said, turning her face more away from him as she spoke, 
in a manner that unmistakably indicated the annoyance she 
was suffering. 

“ Oh, Miss Lindisfarn, has no probability of such a question 
being asked of you, ever commended itself to your notice ? 
Have you not seen But it is contemptible of me to embar- 

rass you thus by cowardly shrinking from the subject, on which 
I came here purposely to speak. Miss Lindisfarn,” he went 
on, with^a sort of hurried desperation, “ I came to the Chase 
this day, and I took the liberty of following you hither, for the 
purpose of asking you to be my wife. I say nothing about the 
entirety of my happiness being dependent on your reply ; — it 
is of course that it should be so. A man must be a wretch 
indeed, that could address you, as I am daring to do, were it 
otherwise. I think you must know that I love you well. Not 
that any such knowledge can give me the slightest right to 
presuppose your answer. But it makes it needless for me to 
try to tell you how much, how entirely, you have become all in 
all to me. I am not a young man. Most men have loved more 
than once before they have reached my years But it is the 
first fruit of my heart that I am offering you. My life has not 
been a prosperous or a very happy one. My path through the 
world has always been on the shady side of the wall ! And the 
fact that it has'been so makes my presumption in asking for the 
sunshine of your love seem the greater to me. I ask you to 
smile on a man, who has had few smiles from anyone. I ask 
you to take a pale and colourless life, with nothing in it save 
the one stern presence of Duty, with nothing of present bright- 
ness and little of future hope, and transfigure it with the sun- 
shine and warmth and glory of your love ! That is all I ask ; 

and I proffer nothing in return save nothing at all ; I have 

nothing to proffer. What is my love to one who has love and 

admiration from everybody everybody, from her cradle 

upwards ! ” 

All this had been poured out with passionate rapidity and 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


2G5 


vehemence, while Kate kept her face steadily turned away from 
him towards the distant horizon. He might have supposed 
that no word of all he had said had reached her ear, so motion- 
less and utterly voiceless she remained ! But though she had 
commanded herself sufficiently to allow no sound to escape her 
lips, her power of self-control had been limited to the effort 
needed for that. The silent tears were streaming from her 
eyes ; and she feared even to raise her hand to her face to dry 
them, lest the motion should betray her agitation. 

He had paused a moment or two, but no sound of answer 
came. 

“ Is there no hope for me ? he asked, in a tremulous voice ; 
“ must the future be a yet more cheerless and hopeless blank 
to me than the past ? Miss Lindisfarn, is there no hope for 
me? ” 

Still there came no word, and her face was turned away so 
that he could not see it. But she shook her head with a slow, 
sad motion, which very plainly expressed a reply in the nega- 
tive to the question that had been asked her. 

“ Gracious Heaven ! Is that my answer ? Do I understand 
you aright ? Miss Lindisfarn ! ” he continued, in a voice 
tremulous with the agony of his mind, the tones of which were 
well calculated to make their way to a tougher heart than that 
of her on whose ear they fell, “ Miss Lindisfarn ! Is that 
your sole answer ? Have you no word for me? 

But still no other answer came, than a repetition of the same 
slow and sad shaking of the head. 

“Then God help me ! My life is done ! ” he exclaimed, in a 
tone of utter despair ; “ I ought not to have set my all on so 
desperate a cast ! Miss Lindisfarn, I ought, perhaps, to say, 
that I have not been unaware of the very wide distance placed 
between us in respect to the goods of fortune. But I have not 
cared to touch on that head, because I am quite sure that your 
decision on my fate, be it what it might, would not turn on that 
consideration ” 

Here Kate’s agitation became such that her shoulders, which 
were turned towards him, and her whole person, were visibly 
shaken by it ; and with a great gasping sob there burst from 
her, as if it had forced itself from her heart against her will, 
the exclamation, “ God bless you, Captain Ellingham, for that 
word ! ” and then the pent up agony could be held in no 
longer, and she burst into a storm of sobs and tears, so violent 
as to bo wholly beyond her power to control it, 


266 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


Ellingham was so ntterly unprepared for any such manifes- 
tation of feeling, so completely amazed and thunderstruck, that 
he did not at the moment accurately apply her words to the 
phrase of his that called them forth. 

“ Gracious Heaven ! Miss Lindisfarn, what have I done ? 
What have I said ? Why are you so distressed ? It is for me 
to bear, as God shall give me strength, the blow that has fallen 
on me. I have no right, and. Heaven knows, no wish to dis- 
tress you thus.” 

Still the convulsive sobbing continued, despite her utmost 
efforts to recover control over herself. Ellingham was utterly 
at a loss what interpretation to put upon her extreme agitation. 
After another short pause, he said again : 

“ At all events there must be no misunderstanding between 
us. The matter at stake is to me too tremendously vital. Is 
it your deliberate purpose. Miss Lindisfarn, to communicate 
to me in answer to my question, that there is no hope for 
me ? ” 

She shook her head amid continued weeping, and sobbed out 
the words, “ Ho hope ! Ho hope ! ” 

“ Ho hope, either now or in the future ! If there is any^ oh, 
Miss Lindisfarn, give me the benefit of it, in pity.” 

And again the only reply was the same sad shaking of the 
head, and the words, “ Hone, none ! ” 

“ And it is your own decision that you give me, not that of 
any other person ? ” urged Ellingham ; still at a loss to con- 
ceive any explanation of her extraordinary emotion. 

She bowed her head once, looking up at him with streaming 
eyes ; — for he had risen from his seat on the rock, and was now 
standing in front of her. 

“ Your own unbiassed decision ? ” he reiterated. 

“ It is my own decision. Hobody has prompted it. Hobody 
knows anything about it.” 

“ And there is no hope for me, that time may produce any 
change in my favour ? Ho hope that I may be able to win 

your affection in return for not a lightly felt, or lightly 

given love. Miss Lindisfarn ? ” 

“ Oh ! pray leave me. Captain Ellingham. I cannot say 
anything other than I have said. I cannot ! Please leave 
me ! ” 

“ But how can I leave you here in the state of agitation in 
which you appear to be. Miss Lindisfarn ? ” 

“ Hever mind ! It is very foolish of me. But please leave 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


267 


me to myself. I shall recover my myself in a few minutes ! 

It was the surprise and my great sorrow at being 

obliged to pain you, Captain Ellingham. But but I 

cannot do otherwise; you will perhaps no! I was only 

going to say that that it must be as I have said ! ’’ 

“ And I must leave you thus ? 

“ Yes, please. Captain Ellingham ! I shall be better pre- 
sently, and will then walk down to the house by myself.” 

“ Good-bye then. Miss Lindisfarn. I have been the victim of 
a great mistake, of a monstrous and blind self-delusion ! 
Forgive me for the annoyance I have caused you, and for the 
besotted presumption, which led me to do it I Farewell, 
Miss Lindisfarn, and may God bless you, now and for ever ! ” 

“ Farewell, Captain Ellingham 1 God bless you, too ! I 
pray it very earnestly. And think as little hardly of me as 
you can. Farewell ! ” 

Think hardly. Miss Lindisfarn ! I can put no interpreta- 
tion on the manner in which you have received and rejected my 
suit. That some reason influences you, which you do not judge 
well to assign to me is, I think, evident. But be assured — be 
very well assured that I do not imagine, and never shall or can 
imagine, that that reason, be it what it may, is of a kind to 

shake the opinion, that you are all that my great love has 

believed you to be.” 

And with those words he turned and left the top of the rock 
by the same way by which he had climbed it. 

Kate’s tears gushed out afresh as he left her, sitting in the 
place from which she had not moved, during the whole of 
the above conversation ; and she looked out eagerly through 
them to catch sight of him, as he came round the base of 
the rock, on his way down the hill towards the house, and 
towards Silverton. 

But she was disappointed. For he did not come round the 
rock, nor descend by that side of the hill ; and Kate, therefore, 
saw him no more. 


268 


LINDISFAEN CHASE, 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

‘‘anothee veey good WAT.” — MES. GLASSE, passim. 

It was not strictly true, as has been said, that Lady 
Sempronia expected a visit from her niece Margaret on that 
particular morning on which she induced the somewhat re- 
luctant Mr. Mat to drive her over to Silverton. Yet it was 
quite true that the visit was expected, though not by Lady 
Sempronia. The gentle Margaret, however, had found the 
means during the past winter of making herself so acceptable 
to her aunt, that she was always glad to see her. And when 
upon this occasion she arrived from Lindisfarn, as was usually 
the case, before the Canon had returned from the morning 
service at the Cathedral — (for Mr. Mat in the gig was not so 
long getting over the eight miles as Thomas Tibbs with the 
family carriage behind him) she found as cordial a welcome 
from her drab-coloured aunt, sitting alone in her drab-coloured 
drawing-room, as was compatible with the nature of the 
person and the locality. 

Mr. Mat, it is to be understood, did not come in; but 
dropping Miss Margaret at her uncle’s door, went away to his 
own affairs ; for Mr. Mat entered Lady Sempronia’s doors and 
her presence, to tell the truth, as rarely as bienseance would 
permit. Probably, after putting up the gig at the Lindisfarn 
Arms, he strolled to the Cathedral and lounged in the nave till 
the Rev. Mr. Thorburn, the Minor Canon, came out from 
service, and then adjourned with that musical dignitary to 
the house of little Peter Glenny, the organist, 

Margaret found her aunt a shade or two worse in spirits 
than usual. In truth, existence and the world in general had 
but a flavourless, drab-coloured, washed-out sort of appearance, 
as seen from the Lady Sempronia’s point of view, it must be 
admitted. The low ceiling’d drab-coloured drawing-room, with 
its worn-out carpet, and pale-brown curtains, and faded 
furniture, had not on that March morning the cheerfulness duo 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


269 


to the sunshine, and the beauty of the garden outside its 
windows, that it had when the reader first made acquaintance 
with it. The garden had, as yet, but little beauty ; the 
morning was raw and chilly, and it is impossible to conceive 
anything more sugg’estive of ascetic uncomfortableness than 
the miserable little bit of half extinguished fire, which, con- 
tained in some wretched contrivance for rendering the proper 
proportions of the grate abortive, occupied the middle of 
Lady Sempronia’s fireplace. She was sitting, when Margaret 
entered, in the centre of a large, deep, old-fashioned sofa, — one 
of that kind which show no portion of uncovered wood in any 
part of them ; and was engaged in manufacturing out of balls 
of white bobbin a small square of network, destined to be 
pinned against the back of one of the drab-coloured armchairs, 
rather for the concealment of its dilapidations, than the pro- 
tection of its magnificence. 

A litter of books upon the table, even if the inmate does not 
read them, suggests the possibility of doing so, and the idea of 
the companionship of other minds. A clock ticking audibly 
on the mantelpiece is not an incitement to uproarious gaiety, 
but it at least conveys an impression of homeliness and life. 
A cat on the hearthstone, again, is far better than the clock, 
and contributes much towards mitigating the horrors of such 
a position as that of the Lady Sempronia. But she had none 
of these alleviations, and as she sat there upright in the middle 
of the great sofa, placed at right angles to the almost empty 
grate, and opposite to the window looking in fco the sunless 
and almost flowerless garden, in the midst of the tomb-like 
stillness of the colourless drawing-room, it is hardly surprising 
if the world in general presented itself to her view as a vale 
of tears, and on the whole as a melancholy mistake and failure. 
It is intelligible that under such circumstances the arrival of 
Miss Margaret should have been felt by her aunt to be a not 
unwelcome relief. 

Lady Sempronia had, moreover, a special trial to lament 
over on the morning in question. This, indeed, was generally 
the case ; but on the present occasion it was a matter that had 
particularly tried her temper. 

“My position, you see, my dear,” she remarked to her 
sympathising niece, after the usual condolences which con- 
stituted the Lady Sempronia’s mode of greeting and welcom- 
ing, “is one of peculiar hardship and difficulty. Your uncle, 
without being qidte far enough gone to be put under restraint, 


270 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


is nevertheless fully as incapable of managing his own affairs, 
or , of conducting himself with ordinary propriety as most of 
those who are so.” 

“ It is a very vexatious position, dear Aunt ! ” 

“ Ah, my dear ! if .you only knew" half of what I have to go 
through ! There was yesterday evening ! I do assure you it 
was one of the most painful trials that could be inflicted upon 
a right-minded person ! ” 

“ What was it. Aunt ? ” 

“ Oh, my dear ! Such a scene ! so painful ! We had a few 
friends to dine with us ; the Doctor’s doing as usual. I know 
too well that our means do not justify us in entering into such 
expenses. We might do so, of course, with perfect comfort 
and propriety even, if the money were not all flung away on 
the most futile absurdities. But, as I say to Doctor Lindisfarn, 
you cannot burn the candle at tw"o ends at once. You cannot 
give dinners and print monographs, both.” 

“ That is very true, dear Aunt ! ” said Margaret, shaking 
her head sympathetically. 

“ But the Doctor thinks differently,” pursued the faded lady, 
with a deep sigh ; “ and he would have me invite people to 
dine here yesterday ; the Dean and Mrs. Barton, Dr. Blakistry, 
the Polstons, from Sillmouth, and one or two others : quite 
enough to carry the story of what they saw all over the 
country.” 

“ What was it ? ” asked Margaret, with an awakening of 
real curiosity. 

“ Oh, my dear ! we had all gone into the dining-room ; the 
Dean took me,- of course, and the rest came in as they chose ; 
for the Doctor was not there. He never will do anything like 
other people ! and generally when there are any people here he 
joins us in the dining-room. Well, my dear, dear Margaret 1 
We were all in our places round the table. Sanders said the 
Doctor was coming, and was holding the door open for him. 
We all paused a minute, still standing to wait for him, when 

Oh, my dear child! I shall never, never forget that 

moment ! In walked your Uncle I could see by the look of 

his eye in a minute that he had no more idea of where he was, 

or what he was doing than a stark staring Bedlamite up 

he walked to his place at the bottom of the table, with the 
same sort of step he has, you know, when he is walking 

up the nave with his surplice on, and and down he 

went on his knees, and put his face into his soup-plate, as 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


271 


if it was his trencher-cap ! Oh, Margaret ! I thought I 
should have dropped where I stood ! The Dean behaved very 
well ; but I saw Mrs. Barton give him a look across the table. 
Then we all sat down ; and I was in hopes that that would 
have recalled him to himself, and to some decent sense of the 
proprieties of the time and place. But not a bit of it ! Pre- 
sently he stood up, and looked round the table in a calm and 
dignified sort of way, as much as to ask why the service 
didn’t begin. And that vulgar, coarse wretch. Minor Canon 
Thorburn, who was sitting near the bottom of the table, 
called out in his great chanting voice, ‘ Not a bit of it. Doctor ! 
I have chanted the service twice this day, and I’m not going to 
begin it again ! ” and that brought him to ; ‘ Ah ! bless my 
soul ! ’ said he, ‘ dinner-time ! so it is ! Thorburn and I make 
it straight between us. He thinks he is elsewhere, sometimes, 
when he is in church, I think I am in church when I ought 
to be eating my dinner ! ’ And then there was a tittering all 
round. But what provokes me past bearing is that your 
Uncle takes all such things as coolly and calmly as if he were 
doing everything he ought to do ! He was not embarrassed, 
not he ! He has no sense of shame ! ” 

“ It is very sad,” sighed Margaret; “and Aunt, dear, talking 
of that, I think I had better go into the study, before Uncle 
comes home from the Cathedral, to put away a few of the 
remaining copies of the Memoir of the City 'Walls. He has 
given away several copies lately, and there are only a few left ; 
and if they run out altogether, he will be sure to reprint it. 
You know he never objects to my being among his books ; and 
I meant to hide a few copies of the Town Walls behind Grose’s 
Antiquities. All the space behind Slawkingham’s History of 
Sillshire is filled with a reserve store of the Monograph on the 
Horseshoe Arches at Parbury-in-the-Moor, which is particu- 
larly bad for him to give away because of the coloured plate at 
the beginning ! ” 

It will be perceived, that Margaret had not only acquired a 
perfect understanding of the home politics of Lady Sempronia’s 
household, but had made herself very intelligently useful in 
forwarding that much-tried lady’s views. When alone with 
her Uncle, she had no scruple in pouring oil on the fire of his 
antiquarian zeal, to the utmost extent that her ignorance of- 
everything connected with the subject would allow. And when 
she found herself in the somewhat more difficult circumstance 
of being present at any difference of opinion between her 


272 


LIXDISfARN CHASE. 


Uncle and Aunt, she was wont to extricate herself from the 
difficulty by a masterly silence, dropping her silken lashes 
over her downcast eyes, with an expression that deplored the 
existence of a difference, and permitted either party to feel 
how deeply she lamented the perversity and obstinacy of the 
other. 

“ Do, my dear ! Go into the study. You have not above 
a quarter of an hour before the service will be over. I am 
sure it is a comfort to have anyone in the house, who so 
thoroughly understands all the trials I have to go through.” 

So Margaret left her Aunt to her knitting, or knotting, or 
netting, or whatever the proper term is to describe the fabrica- 
tion of the reticulated fabric on which she was engaged, and 
betook herself to her Uncle’s study. But having entered that 
sanctum and carefully closed the door, and having taken at 
random some half-dozen volumes from the shelves and placed 
them on the floor, she appeared to be suddenly called away from 
her librarian-like avocation to other cares. Birst of all she 
tripped with a step that would hardly have bent the grass- 
blades beneath it, had her tripping been in a meadow, to the 
window — not that looking into the garden, but the opposite 
one at the other end of the room looking into the Close — and 
carefully drawing aside as much of the muslin curtains which 
hung before it, as would enable her to peep out from the side of 
it, in a direction which commanded the road leading towards the 
door of the Cathedral, she gazed for half a minute, and, appa- 
rently satisfied, dropped the curtain. Then holding* back the 
folds of her pretty lilac silk dress with both exquisitely gloved 
hands, she put out first one and then the other slender foot, 
cased in bronze coloured morocco bottines, the admirable fitting 
of which showed off the arching of the instep to the greatest 
advantage. Both were subjected to a close scrutiny, and neither 
was found to be quite free from dust, while on the heel of one 
appeared a slight splash. So the pretty examiner darted across 
the room to a drawer under the shelves in one corner of the 
library, and sharply pulling it open, took from it a duster, 
which the Doctor kept there for the behoof of his books, and 
hastily set to work to repair the mischief her scrutiny had 
discovered. This happily accomplished, she again returned to 
the window, and again satisfied herself that there was nobody 
yet coming across from the Cathedral. Just opposite to the 
door, and behind the lay figure, which has been mentioned in 
a former chapter as a device of Dr. Liudisfarxi’s for reminding 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


273 


him to take off his surplice on returning’ from the choir, there 
was a small square toilet-glass hung against the panelled wall, 
intended for the Doctor’s service in robing, though ministering 
but little to the correctness of his appearance by its hints. 
It was now, however, consulted by a more docile pupil. Having 
put all into perfect order at one extremity of her person, 
Margaret now gave her attention to the other. The edges of 
the dark bands of glossy hair on her brow had to be just a 
little retouched ; the ribbons of the pretty bonnet to be re- 
adjusted beneath the chin; and the set of 'that chef oeuvre 
itself somewhat modified. All this was done with a rapid 
and sure hand; the result was approved by one intent and 
searching, but all too transient glance ; — a second was 
devoted to an equally rapid dress-rehearsal of a small but 
exceedingly effective pantomime representation by the eyes 
themselves ; and then the charming performer flitted back to 
her post of observation at the corner of the window looking on 
the Close. 

Was ever such preparation made before by a dutiful niece 
for receiving an elderly uncle, and that uncle a Canon return- 
ing from morning service at his Cathedral ! 

In a very few minutes she dropped the muslin curtain from 
her fingers, as if it had sudenly burned her ; a bright look of 
satisfaction came over her face, the blood mounted to her fair 
cheeks just sufficiently to tinge the cream-coloured satin of them 
with the delicate hue of a pale hedge-rose, and her eyes were 
lighted up with the brilliancy of animation, as she tripped back 
to the place in the bookshelves from which she had removed 
the volumes to the floor, and took one of the books in her 
hand. In the next minute the Doctor, having let himself in 
with his latchkey, opened the door of the study, and was heard 
saying : 

“ Come in, come in, Mr. Falconer ! I shall have much 
pleasure in showing you the volume. What, Margaret, you 
here ? Delighted to see you, my dear ! ” 

“ I was at my old work among your books, you see. Uncle ; 
but I did not intend to get caught playing the librarian by any- 
one but you. Mr. Mat was coming' in this morning, so I begged 
a place in the gig.” 

“ And I little thought of the pleasure that was in store for 
me, when I walked with you across the Close, Doctor ! ” said 
Falconer. 

His eyes and Margaret’s had already met, and exchanged 

18 


274 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


intelligent greeting and congratulations on the success of the 
lie that each was telling. 

The unsuspicious Canon proceeded meanwhile to disrobe 
himself and robe his lay representative, or as the Rev. Minor 
Canon Thorburn (more generally called, out of church. Jack 
Thorburn,) used to say with ever new felicitousness on every 
occasion, turn him from a lay into a clerical figure ; while the 
two young people shook hands, with laughing, conscious 
eyes. 

‘‘ How good this is of you ; you certainly are the best as well 
as the loveliest girl that ever breathed ! Had you any difficulty 
about the gig ? ” whispered Falconer. 

“ Yes, indeed I had ! That old brute, Mr. Mat, after offer- 
ing to ride with Kate, pretended to have business to do, when 
I asked him to drive me in ; and then told me in so many 
words, that I was mere dirt compared to her — the atrocious old 
savage ! I wouldn’t have stooped to ask him, or be driven 

by him, if it had not been for ” and her magnificent eyes 

said the rest far more eloquently than the most silver tongue 
could have done. 

“ The old savage ! think of your having exposed 

yourself to such annoyances ” and Mr. Freddy also con- 

cluded his phrase by the same medium of communication, — 
creditably, yet not in the same style that Margaret did it. She 
certainly had the finest and most expressive eyes that ever 
were seen in a human head. They were so beautiful, so tender, 
so eloquent ! They could look anything — save honest. 

“And now. Sir, that the object has been served, I do not 
mean to play librarian any longer. So you may put these 
horrid old books back in their places. I am afraid I have 
soiled my gloves with them as it is ! ” said Margaret, holding 
out the tips of her taper fingers for his inspection in a pro- 
vocative manner that made it absolutely necessary for Freddy 
to assist in the process by subjecting each separate digit to 
manipulation and minute investigation. 

“What exquisite gloves! Paris, of course. Well, I do 
think there is nothing more beautiful in nature than a beautiful 
hand... ...when one sees it to perfection,” added Fred, as, after 

satisfying himself that the books had done little or no mischief, 
he contemplated Margaret’s hand, while the extreme tips of its 
fingers were supported by the extreme tips of his. 

Come, attend to your work ! Put the books back again 
into their plaoea,” said Margaret. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 275 

Can’t we get away into the garden ? ” whispered Falconer, 
as he did so. 

“ He will drive us away in a minute,” returned Margaret in 
the same voice, “ you’l] see ! ” 

“ I think I have finished my task for to-day. Uncle,” she 
continued, as the Doctor, having got rid of his canonicals, came 
up the room from the further end near the door to his accus- 
tomed corner by the fire, and behind the screen of books, that 
has been described as nearly dividing* the room into two ; ‘‘ I 
thought I should just have time before you came back from 
church to finish putting the Bampton Lectures on this shelf in 
the proper order according to their dates.” 

‘‘ Thank you, my dear ! And now you must run away to 
your aunt, for I am going to be very busy. Mr. Falconer, 
Lady Sempronia will be delighted to see you in the drawing- 
room. See, here is the volume we were speaking of. You can 
send it back to me when you have done with it.” 

So the Doctor was left in possession of his study. 

“ Can’t we get away into the garden ? ” said Falconer again, 
as they crossed the hall together towards the drawing-room. 

“We must speak to my aunt firstf’ returned Margaret, 
opening the drawing-room door as she spoke. 

“ Uncle has been insisting,” said she, as soon as Fred had 
saluted Lady Sempronia, “ on my showing Mr. Falconer that 
point in the corner of your garden, from which the old keep 
tower is visible. I don’t suppose he cares much to see it ; but 
qui voulez vous ? I must do as I am bid ! ” And the wonderful 
eyes in two consecutive seconds claimed admiration and grati- 
tude from Falconer for the ready lie, and exchanged condolences 
with her aunt on the boredom of her uncle’s antiquarianism. 

“Come, Mr. Falconer,” she continued, “come and see the 
tower as it appears from the Close gardens.” 

So they escaped into the garden, and were soon arm-in-arm, 
in a sheltered walk under the old city wall, which there 
formed also the boundary of the Canon’s garden, and which 
was very near the spot from which, in fact, the keep-tower was 
visible. 

One would have said that Margaret had schemed with right 
gO(jd will to secure this tete-a-tete with Falconer ; and yet, now 
the object was attained, all the abundant cheerfulness and good 
humour which had been so apparent but a minute ago, seemed 
at once to have deserted her, and a pensive melancholy had 
suddenly supervened in their place \ even as the face of tba 
18—2 


276 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


landscape is clianged when the sun is hidden behind a cloud. 
The fine eyes were fixed upon the ground, or raised only from 
time to time to glance for a moment with an expression of 
gentle sadness on his face. She answered him in monosyllables, 
and his most insinuating compliments were only answered with 
a sigh. 

In short it became absolutely necessary for him to inquire 
very tenderly what it was that had damped her spirits ; had he 
had the inexpressible misfortune of offending her ? 

In all probability Mr. Fred Falconer understood perfectly 
well what the matter was ; and interpreted the signs hung out 
to him with an accuracy and readiness which made all further 
conversation -Qn the subject superfluous; for kindred spirits 
understand one another rapidly in these cases. Nevertheless 
it was necessary that the little comedy, in which these two 
talented performers were engaged, should be duly performed. 

No ! returned Margaret, looking steadily at the gravel 
walk, and picking leaf from leaf a rose which she had gathered 
from the creeping plant that almost covered the old grey wall, 
while she let the pink petals fall one after another, according 
to the usual stage directions provided for such circumstances — 

No ! You have neither done or said anything to ofiend me ; 
(just the slightest emphasis upon the two verbs ;) “I should 
be very ungrateful for much kindness, if I were to say or think 

so, Mr. Falconer ; but ” (eyes, which had been raised for a 

second with one expressive glance at the words, much kindness, 
here glued to the gravel more determinedly than ever). 

“ But what, my dear Miss Lindisfarn ? What was to have 
followed that little hesitating hut, so all important to me ? ” 

“ Is it so important to you ? ” (half a glance from corner of 
eye in state of liquefaction ; extreme tenderness and the purest 
candid naivete in equal proportions thrown into the voice;) 

“ Can I flatter myself that it is so ? 

“ Surely, my dear Miss Lindisfarn, surely you must know, 
that all that concerns your happiness, is so to me ! ” (Intense 
pathos. Pause on the gravel walk. Gentleman moves slightly 
in front of lady, and very timidly lays fingers of right hand on 
back of glove engaged in picking the rose to pieces. 
Appealing glance, only to be attempted in case of handsome 
eyes). 

“ Is what to you ? I do not quite understand you,” said 
Margaret, taking prompt advantage of her companion’s 
imperfect grammatical construction, and at the same time 


LINDISFARN CHASfi. 277 

very slightly and as if unconsciously, withdrawing her 
hand. 

“ Nay, you know what I would say ! There is something 
which weighs on your spirits ! You may hide it from others, 
— but do you think, Miss Lindisfarn, that it can be concealed 
from me ? Whatever your trouble may be, can you not confide 

it to me ? Mar Oh, forgive me. Miss Lindisfarn ! I 

I I forgot myself! That sweet, dear, name 1 Marguerite 1 

May I dare May I call you. Marguerite ? ” 

(This is an important point in the play ; and according to 
the rules of this Royal Game of Goose, you stop three turns 
for the eyes to exchange a glance, to which Burl eights nod 
was as a sixpenny pamphlet to a Blue Book of the biggest 
dimensions. If the lady player be sure of herself, and knows 
what she is about, she may make the look steady and fixed for 
five seconds, and make it up of fluttered tenderness three parts, 
gently reproachful pathos two parts, and ingenuous surprise — 
be careful about the quality of this last article — one part, dis- 
solved in two drops of lacliryma jpura. N.B. A larger quantity 
of the liquid vehicle would injure the operation. A gentle 
heaving of the bosom may be judiciously thrown in. Exhibited 
in this form the effect is wonderful.) . 

Margaret made up the dose with admirable and unerring 
skill, and administered *it with prompt decision. 

“ Yes 1 I think it is a pretty name,” she said, dropping her 
eyes as soon as they had performed the operation, “ and it is 

sweet to hear it from the lips of those who But I don’t 

know if I dare tell you. I don’t know if I am doing right. 
I cannot tell how you may judge me,,’ (emphasis delicate, and 
not too strong on the pronoun) “ if I venture to make the con- 
fidence you ask.” 

‘‘ Can you doubt that Marguerite ? ” said Falconer with 

an ardent glance, and uttering the name as if he had received a 
sharp blow on the second button of his waistcoat, at the 
moment it issued from his lips. He was doing his best ; but 
the fact is, that he was a very inferior performer to the lady. 

“ I do think I may trust you to put a kind construction on 
my venturing to tell you,” said she, with a little gush, most 
delicately and artistically hit off. In fact, the two or three last 
plunges which the fine fish on her hook had been making, 
showed her that the moment had come for winding up line 
rapidly ; “ I do think I may venture. You are so good, so kind, 
so indulgent I The fact is I have been blamed cruelly 


278 


LINDISFARN CHASE* 


blamed and misjudged oh! how can I tell it you? 

Those I live among are not all as kind to me as you are, 
Mr. Falconer ! Cruel, wicked things have been said about me 

in connection with you 1 I am accused of of Oh ! how 

can I say it? of allowing you to occupy too much of my 

attention! of giving occasion to the coupling our names 

together by the world. And I am told that I must be more 

cir cir circum spect ! Oh, it is very hard! 

very cruel ! ” 

And here the lovely creature’s cup of sorrow was too full ! 
It brimmed over ! She was sobbing — not aloud, for it was 
possible that her uncle’s study window might be open ; possible 
also that the gardener might be within earshot; but still 
very unmistakably sobbing. 

Falconer had not been paying all the attention to the touch- 
ingly-broken utterances of this address which the admirable 
method of its delivery deserved. The only excuse for him was, 
that he perfectly well knew what she was going to say before 
she began ; and that the moments occupied by the speaking of 
it were exceedingly necessary to him for the taking of such a 
rapid and masterly survey of the general situation as should 
enable him to decide promptly yet prudently on his immediate 
course of action. 

The fact was, that he he had not intended to make a direct 
and formal offer of his hand to Miss Lindisfarn on that day. 
It was not that he at all wavered in his determination of doing 
so, or had any thought of swerving from the line of conduct 
he had on mature consideration traced out for himself in the 
preceding autumn, and had been conscientiously labouring to 
carry out all the winter. Far from it ! But he was both by 
nature and by training a cautious man. It was a golden rule 
of life with him “ Not to put his arm out further than he could 
draw it back again.” And might he not be about to do so ? 
“ Never set your name to a contract, Fred, a minute before it is 
necessary to do so,” his father had often said to him. And 
now the still voice of paternal wisdom whispered in his heart. 
Yet, on the other hand, “ Strike while the iron is hot,” was a 
good maxim too. And it did seem to his best judgment, that 
the iron was quite hot now. It was good thrift, surely, to 
make hay while the sun shone ! And when could it shine more 
brightly than at the present moment ? And might it not be 
possible to combine the advantages of both the opposing 
systems ? Might not this feat of ability be attainable 


LINDTSFARN CHASE, 


279 


by a judicious .and bold dexterity? Fred thought that it 
might. And all these thoughts had passed in his master mind, 
and his decision had been taken by the time Margaret had got 
to the end of her delicately confidential communication. Ho 
had decided on stretching out his arm ; but not so that, if some 
possible, though highly improbable, contingency should make 
it desirable, he should be unable to draw it back. Was he 
after all irrevocably putting his name to a .contract by words 
uttered only to one pair of ears ? • So he said, Base and 
unmanly ! ” grinding the words between his clenched teeth ; 
“it is the penalty which hearts that can feel pa^^to the jealousy 
of the colder natures, which cannot sympathise with them ! ” 
(Freddy was fond of that sentence, and set it down in fair 
round-hand text in his private journal — it is to be hoped not 
for future use.) “You must know, dear dearest Mar- 

guerite,” — here he took her hand, which she did not this time 
withdraw — she knew that she was en regie, and that the game 
was now in her own hands — “that your happiness and peace of 
mind are dearer to me than my own ! If you do not know it, 
will you believe it ? Will you sufier me to persuade you that 
it is so — will you give me this little hand, and with it the right 
to defend you against all, or any, who may dare to breathe a 
word against you ? Marguerite, best, loveliest — may I say 
dearest. Marguerite ? may I say my Marguerite ? ” (voice 
suddenly dropped to exquisitely tender whisper.) 

Dead silence ; a little vibrating tremor commencing’ in the 
charmingly gloved hand he now held in both of his, gradually 
communicated itself to her whole person. Then two little sobs, 
barely more than sighs ; and all executed with faultless per- 
fection. (N.B. — This passage had better not be attempted by 
beginners. If not handled with consummate tact it would be 
a failure. It is true that Margaret was making her debut. 
But inborn genius sets aside all rules !) 

“ Oh, rapture ! Am I then, indeed, the happiest man who 
breathes this day ? ” 

This appeal produced a quivering but very decided pressure 
of the little lilac-gloved hand. 

(This may be very safely executed by anyone ; and those 
who feel that they ought not to venture on the more difficult 
business described in the former paragraph, had better proceed 
at once to this part of the exercise.) 

“ Look up, ray sweet one ; give me one look of those divine 
eyes ! Speak to me, my Marguerite ! ” 


280 


LINDISFAIcX CHASE. 


She did give him a look. And upon my word, it almost 
threw his double-entry heart off its balance, and tumbled him 
into earnestness. Juliet and Ophelia blended in one, were in 
the look of those large, soft eyes ! She knew in her heart at 
the moment that that look was unnecessary ; that she had won 
her game without it. But she was carried away by the spirit 
of her part. It was the love of the consummate artist for her 
art — the irresistible impulse of true genius to revel in the per- 
fection of its own ideal ! 

The “look,” which Frederick had asked for, had been 
accorded him in such measure that he did not think it 
necessary to press his demand for a categorical verbal answer 
any further ; but would have been contented to assume that his 
proposal was accepted, and to carry on the remainder of the 
interview in the tone suggested to his imagination by the 
eloquence of Margaret’s look. But this did not suit the lady’s 
views. The business part of the meeting was not completed 
yet in her estimation; and till it should be so, she was, in 
accordance with the good old saw, in no wise minded to come 
to the play. So dropping once more the victorious eyes beneath 
their heavy lids and long lashes, she whispered : 

“You bid me speak to you, Frederick ! What can T say, 
save that I am your own, — yours only, yours ever, through 
good and ill ! ” 

And as she spoke, she let her hand rest in his, looking into 
his face with an expression of expectation and waiting for 
something, that imperatively demanded of him a similarly 
categorical and solemn declaration. 

“ My own sweet Marguerite. How can I find words to say 
how entirely, how devotedly, I am yours ? ” 

“ Mine, Frederick, for ever, come weal come woe ! ” she said, 
clasping her hands together, and looking up into his face with 
an intensity of tenderness and solemnity combined, that made 
Freddy feel as if every possibility of retreat was being cut off 
behind him ; precisely, in short, as she intended that he should 
feel. 

Nevertheless, though the man could not but be affected by 
the tender earnestness of the lovely creature by his side, the 
spirit of the man of business so far rallied as to whisper to 
him that after all, these fine words were words only, unheard 
unwitnessed ! It was all right, no doubt. But if any hitch 
why 

It was singular, however, and surely an evidence of their 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


281 


fitness for each other, that similar thoughts were at that very 
instant passing through his Marguerite’s mind. 

Nevertheless, having with a firm hand and steady attention 
to the main object in view, brought the affair to the above 
favourable point, she felt that the recognised rules of the game 
did not justify her in refusing to her adorer an admixture of that 
'post seria ludum^ which happily tempers the business in which 
they had been engaged as well as most other sublunary matters. 
She permitted him to encircle her slender and elastic waist 
with one arm, while fondling with his other hand the dainty 
little palm passed across from the opposite side, only thinking, 
with a pretty little start, that she heard the gardener, when 
she had reason to fear that he might be rumpling the beauti- 
fully arranged folds of her silk skirt. She allowed him to 
“ seal the contract on her divine lips,” all according to the 
well known rules, merely holding up her hands the while in 
such a manner as to protect as far as might be from injury the 
artistic arrangement of her hair, and the perfect set of her 
bonnet and its ribbons, and recovering and repairing herself 
after the operation, with a manner and action very similar 
to that of a duck after withdrawing its pretty head from 
beneath the surface of the water. 

Having accorded these favours, however, while meditating 
on the next step which it was expedient to take under the cir- 
cumstances, she shook off the sweet forgetfulness, and once 
more returned to business thus : 

“I have said that I am yours, Frederick, because you bade 
me say so, and because Heaven knows how entirely it is the 
truth ; but we must not forget that I am promising more 
than it is in my own power to perform. My heart is your 
Marguerite’s own to give, and she has given it freely, wholly, 
irrevocably ! It is your own, now and for ever ! But my 
hand, alas ! is not so entirely at my own disposition. My 
father ! You must ask me of him, my Frederick ! I have no 
reason to think that he will refuse you ; how should I have 
any ? But it is absolutely necessary to make your demand of 
him in due form. Trust to me to have prepared him to 
receive it.” 

“ I had been thinking, my own Marguerite, that it would be 
well to avoid as long as might be the envious gossip and tittle- 
tattle of a little country town, by keeping our engagement our 
own sweet secret for a while.” 

Oh, you are so right, so right ! It will be the greatest 


282 


LINDTSFABN CHASF. 


I’elief. It will need but a word to Papa, a hint, that it is as 
well to let the matter remain between our two families for the 
present. He will meet your father, you know ; and that is all 
that is necessary. I think you so right.” 

“You do not think that it would be better to defer the 
application to your father for a time ? ” 

“ Ah no ! My Frederick, I dare not ! Besides, remember 
what I was forced, amid burning blushes, to confess to you at 
the beginning of our conversation. I should be compelled to 

fly your society to keep you at a distance ! And how could 

I submit ? How could I live through such a time of trial ? 
Ho ! I fully agree with you as to the outside world. But it is 
absolutely essential that our two fathers should know the 
truth.” 

“I am not sure ” said Frederick, hesitatingly. 

“ Look here, Frederick. I will tell you how it shall be. The 
morning is the best time to be sure of Papa. I will tell him 
to-night after dinner. I can make an opportunity of speaking 
to him alone before going to bed. You ride up early to-morrow 
morning to breakfast ! and see my father in his study before 
he comes out. He is always up some time before the breakfast 
bell rings. You shall find the way well prepared for you. 
And now we must go in. Indeed we have been an unconscion- 
able time in looking at the keep of the Castle ! Why do 
they call it the keep, I wonder ? < Because it keeps people so 
long examining it ! ” laughed Margaret, once again in high 
spirits and good humour. And before emerging from beliind 
the mass of trees that had all this time been hiding them from 
the windows of the house, she permitted Frederick one 
repetition of the “ sealing ” process ; but positively only one ! 
It was too dangerous to the ribbons to be risked needlessly 
often. 

“ I think,” said Margaret, as they entered the house, “ that I 
had better tell Aunt Sempronia. She is so good to me ; and 
we can perfectly trust her, dear creature ! ” 

Freddy Falconer was not, upon the whole, discontented with 
his morning’s work ; though he had done what he had not 
come out that morning with the intention of doing. But Mar- 
garet was such a darling ! He was, as he declared to himself, 
not without some little surprise, and at the same time a sort of 
self-congratulation, really and truly over head and ears in love. 
And then it could not be otherwise than all right. There were 
the Lindisfarn lands. They were not like M. dc Benncvillc’s 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


283 


coupons and actions. They would not be found to have all 
vanished some fine morning. No, no ! It must be all 
right. 

Nevertheless Mr. Frederick felt that he had put out his arm 
80 far, that it would be difficult to draw it back again ; and had 
learned that those who make a point of regulating their 
conduct by that prudent saw, had better not fence with such as 
are their masters at the play. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

“ HOW SHALL I TELL HER ? 

Frederick passed through the house from the garden without 
thinking it necessary to be present at the communication about 
to be made to Lady Sempronia. Margaret told her aunt what 
had occurred in a few simple words, which marked that gifted 
young lady’s capacity for rightly estimating the characters of 
those with whom she was brought into contract. Lady Sem- 
pronia expressed her congratulations — of course in the form 
of condolences — and signified her entire approbation of the 
alliance, under the veil of a resigned thankfulness that matters 
were not worse than they were. Mr. Frederick Falconer was 
rather a model young man in her eyes, as indeed he was in 
those of most of the mammas and daughters of Silverton. He 
always did the proper thing at the proper time and place. He 
would never, it might be safely predicted, waste his own or his 
wife’s substance in printing monographs upon any subject what- 
ever. He would not go to bed when he ought to dress for 
dinner. He would not fancy himself in church, or even in his 
bank, when he was entertaining friends at the bottom of his 
.own table. Her niece’s lot in life would be a happier one than 
her own had been. 

There was no difficulty in making Lady Sempronia under- 
stand that it would be desirable not to make the news public 
just at present. She detested the Silvertonian small-talk, iu 


284 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


which she had so much larger a passive than an active share, 
too much herself not to approve cordially of that measure. 
And still less was there any disagreement respecting the neces- 
sity of not admitting dear Uncle TheojDhilus to the secret. Of 
course that would be equivalent to announcing the fact to all 
Silverton. Margaret told her aunt that it had been arranged 
between them that Frederick should ride up to the Chase the 
next morning to ask her father’s consent in due form, and men- 
tioned her purpose of telling her father all that had occurred 
that same night. 

So then the two ladies nibbled a morsel of stale cake, and 
drank a glass a-piece of vapid sherry in company ; Lady 
Sempronia invoked a blessing on her niece in tones that would 
have suited a last parting in JSTewgate preparatory to an execu- 
tion of one of the parties in front of it ; Mr. Mat came to the 
door in the gig, and excused himself from entering on the plea 
that his horse would not stand ; — (though, to tell the truth, the 
ostler from the Lindisfarn Arms had found no difficulty in 
smoking a quiet and meditative pipe, while he and the horse 
had waited at Peter Glenny’s door sufficiently long for Mr. Mat, 
Minor Canon Thorburn, and Miss Glenny, the organist’s sister, 
just to try over again the “ Chough and Crow; ” but the horses 
from the Chase, all of them except Birdie, had a particular dis- 
like to “ standing ” at the Senior Canon’s door in the Close ;) 
— and Margaret was driven off homewards. 

“ Afraid I’m a few minutes late, Miss Margaret ! But we 
shan’t be long in getting over the eight miles. You shall have 
a good half hour to dress for dinner ; ” said Mr. Mat, touching 
the horse on the flank as he spoke. 

Oh, please, Mr. Mat, don’t drive fast ! I’m always so 
frightened in a gig. Indeed I don’t want half an hour to 
dress.” 

“ All right ! ” said Mr. Mat, who, with a view to future contin- 
gencies, was not bent on making his coachmanship too agree- 
able to his passenger ; “ I never was spilt but three times in 
my life ; and all three times it was going down from Silverton 
turnpike to the Ivy Bridge, when I was going home late for 
dinner. It’s an ugly pitch that ! ” 

“ Oh, please, Mr. Mat ! For goodness sake be careful ! I 
am sure we can spare a few minutes,” cried Margaret, grasp- 
ing the rail by her side, and with difficulty refraining from 
screaming. 

“ Not half a minute to spare, if you have got to try on three 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


285 


dresses before you come to the right one to-day, Miss Mar- 
garet ! ” retorted the horrid brute, speaking in his broadest 
Zillshire. 

Margaret gave him too a look ; — ^her second chef oeuvre in 
that line to-day— and nobody who had seen the two could have 
denied that her powers in that department were versatile. But 
Mr. Mat was taking care of his driving; and was none the 
worse for the fulmination, as he did not see it. 

Nothing more was said till they had passed the Ivy Bridge 
in safety, and begun on the other side of it the long ascent, 
mostly through the woods, to the Chase. 

“ Lady Sempronia in good spirits P ’’ said Mr. Mat then. 

Her ladyship is, I believe, as well as usual,” replied Mar- 
garet, sulkily. 

“ Poor soul ! that’s a bad account,” said Mr. Mat. 

Margaret vouchsafed no reply to this ; and they proceeded 
up the long hill in silence, and at such a more sober pace 
as left her mind at leisure to meditate on one momentous 
question, which had already presented itself to her before she 
left Silverton. 

Was she to tell Kate ? and if so, hovj was she to tell her 
what had taken place ? That was the question. 

It did not take her long to decide the first part of the doubt. 
If she did not tell Kate, her father unquestionably would. It 
might be very easy to lead him to agree in keeping the matter 
a secret for a time from the public of Silverton. It might be 
possible to persuade him that the discretion of Mr. Mat and 
Miss Immy was not to be implicitly trusted. But Margaret 
knew well that it would seem to him monstrous and out of 
the question to keep her secret from the knowledge of Kate. 
It might be dangerous even to propose such a thing. Margaret 
had taken good care to inform herself of a fact, of which the 
reader is already aware, which was also perfectly well-known 
to the Falconers, father and son, and which had been the cause 
of that little prudential hesitation, which had prompted Falconer 
in his somewhat unsuccessful attempts to avoid committing him- 
self. Kate and Margaret were twin sisters, and all the Silver- 
ton world considered them to be co-heiresses of the Lindisfarn 
estates. It was natural that they should be so ; and the Squire 
himself in all probability regarded them as such. But they 
were not so in the eye of the law. They were not so inde- 
feasibly. Failing a male heir, Mr. Lindisfarn’s property was 
at his own disposition. And it was in his power (and there- 


286 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


fore it was an event on the cards) to leave the whole or any 
proportion of the estate to either one of his daughters, if he 
should see fit to do so. This circumstance was never very far 
distant from Margaret’s well-regulated mind, and added very 
remarkably to the binding force of the Fifth Commandment in 
her estimation and practice. She well knew how high Kate 
stood in her father’s affection and esteem. There never had 
been anything in his manner to herself, which was always 
indulgent and loving, to cause her the slightest uneasiness on 
the subject, but it did strike her that it might be unwise, as 
well as certainly futile, to make any attempt at keeping such a 
piece of family news as that which she was now carrying home, 
a secret from Kate while telling it to her father. 

As to the latter step, it was of course necessary for very 
obvious reasons. She had understood all that had been passing 
in her beloved Frederick’s mind, just as perfectly as if he had 
worn glass in front of his breast. His part naturally — and 
very properly — was to play fast and loose in case of possible 
accidents. Hers, more especially with the terrible bit of infor- 
mation in the background which she had, and which he had 
not, was of course to make him him fast as words and vows 
could make him. 

It 'was absolutely necessary then to tell Kate the fact of her 
engagement. And then came the consideration liov) that was 
to be done. After all that had taken place between the two 
sisters, she felt that the task was a difficult one. It was true 
that she had by no means given her sister to understand that 
she had any intention of ruling her own conduct in conformity 
with her scruples. On the contrary, she had very explicitly 
reserved to herself entire freedom of action. She was quite 
aware, however, how very strongly Kate would be grieved, 
and indeed outraged, by her acceptance of Frederick’s offer 
under the circumstances of the case. Her indignation she 
might brave. But would Kate do anything ? Would she take 
any steps ? 

Would it perhaps be possible to make Kate believe that she 
had told Fr^erick all the truth, and that he had persisted in 
his offer undismayed by the intelligence ? Yes ! Kate was 
fool enough to believe anything. But then there would be the 
breach of her solemn promise not to mention the secret of 
Julian’s existence, and far worse, the certainty that Kate would 
then speak openly to Falconer on the subject, No ! that plan 
was out of the question. 


LlNDl&FAEN CHASE. 


287 


Wliat could Kate do to frustrate her schemes, if she were 
anxious, as there was every reason to suppose she would be, to 
do so ? She could not tell the real facts of the case to any- 
body, probably for the next month to come. Could she allow 
Falconer to become aware of the horrible truth, that she and 
her sister were two portionless girls, in any way without 
telling him the facts r It might perhaps be possible for her 
to say, or cause to be said, to him or to his father, enough to 
alarm him and awaken his distrust and caution. Would Kate 
take that step, considering the position it would put her, Mar- 
garet, in ? 

Margaret thought on mature consideration that she would 
not. 

To secure this result, however, she must tell her story to 
Kate pathetically, not defiantly. It must be an appeal ad 
misericordiam. (I am giving Margaret’s thoughts, not her 
words.) She must represent herself, as far as possible, to have 
been the victim of unlucky chance in the matter of her 
encounter with Falconer. Then difficulty, embarrassment, fear 
of having her sacred secret wormed out of her, tender passion, 
etc., must bear the blame, if any still remained to be borne. 
Kate was very soft — believed anything she was told — was very 
pitiful, and easily moved to compassion ! And then again, she 
could hardly in any conceivable way make any such communi- 
cation to the Falconers, however enigmatical, as should rouse 
their doubts on the vital subject of the heiress-ship, without 
exposing to them, either at once or subsequently, the fact, that 
she, Kate, and, therefore, in all human probability, she, Mar- 
garet, also, had been cognizant of the horrible truth at the 
time when she had accepted, and, as she knew right well 
Sit the bottom of her heart, invited his offer. And would 
Kate contribute to place her sister in such a position as that ? 

Margaret, again considering this matter dispassionately 
and carefully, came to the conclusion that Kate would not do 
this. 

The history of the morning, therefore, according to such 
carefully arranged version of it as she thought she could 
manage to concoct, was to be told to Kate ; and she must throw 
herself on her mercy. 

And then came the question — when was this rather formi- 
dable and important conversation to take place ? It was evi- 
dently necessary that it should be done before she spoke to her 
father, And slae had purposed to do that the last thing at 


288 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


night, when the domestic party in the drawing-room were 
separating. She had promised that Falconer should find the 
ground prepared for him when he came the first thing in the 
morning. She rather wished now, that she had not been in 
such a hurry, and had fixed a later day, or at least a later 
hour, for her lover’s interview with her father. Could she 
manage to see the latter in his study as soon as ever he was up, 
before Fred’s arrival ? If so, there would be all the night for 
her talk with her sister. If not, there would be no opportunity 
for speaking with Kate save the hurried half-hour of dressing 
for dinner, on the instant of her arrival at the Chase. That 
would never do. There was not time. Besides, it was so im- 
mediate. She felt that she needed a little time to make up her 
mind to the task, and to arrange her story. There was nothing 
for it save the other plan. And if Freddy arrived in the 
morning before she had finished her interview with her father, 
why she must trust to Kate, who would then be in her confi- 
dence, to receive him, and make him understand that she was 
even then performing her promise to him, and that the coast 
would be clear for his attack on the Squire in a minute or 
two. The time left for him to do his work in before the 
ringing of the breakfast bell, which was like the trump of 
fate to the Squire, would be short, but perhaps that was all for 
the best. 

So Margaret, much pondering, had finally arranged her 
programme in that manner, by the time she and Mr. Mat 
arrived at the Lodge. 

Done the eight miles and a bit in an hour and ten minutes ! 
That’s not so bad. Miss Margaret, considering the ground, and 
that I had your precious safety to think of,” said Mr. Mat, 
“and it wants five-and-thirty minutes to the dinner bell ! ” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Mat, I shall have plenty of time,” said 
Margaret, with a somewhat unwonted degree of cordiality, born 
of the sense of difficulty and danger which was pressing on 
her, and seemed to counsel the wusdom of standing as well 
with all around her as might be. 

So she hurried up to her room ; and to Kate’s somewhat 
languid questions as to her day at Silverton, replied only that 
she had a great many things to tell her, — far more than there 
was then time for ; and that they must have a good chat when 
they came up to bed at night. 

Each sister perceived at once that there was something 
unusual in the manner of the other. And each conceived at 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


289 


once a shrewd suspicion of what she had to hear from the 
other. Kate’s manner was languid, depressed, and that of one 
exhausted by suffering ; — Margaret’s, febrile, nervous, and con- 
strained. Both looked forward with no little apprehension 
and misgiving to the conversation appointed for that night. 
Margaret had little doubt that Kate had received the offer 
from Captain Ellingham, which she had so much dreaded, and 
had refused it. And though totally incapable of comprehending 
many of the feelings which had contributed to make Kate’s 
task a terribly painful one, she understood that it must have 
been very vexatious. She speculated much on the question 
what influence Kate’s own trouble was likely to have on the 
mode in which she would receive her confidence ; and was 
inclined to consider that the result would be unfavourable. 
Surely the high price which she had paid for the gratification 
of her own scruples would disincline her to indulgence for 
another’s masterly disregard for them. 

Kate surmised and greatly dreaded, yet struggled against 
believing the extent of the misfortune she had to learn from 
Margaret’s confession. She knew that her sister at least 
risked seeing Falconer by going to Silverton ; she had felt that 
she would have cut her hand off rather than have run that risk 
unnecessarily under the present circumstances, and she greatly 
feared, both from what she had already learned to know of 
Margaret’s character, and from her’ obstinacy in going to Sil- 
verton that morning, that if by ill hap Falconer made her an 
offer, Margaret had not had firmness and high principle enough 
to refuse it. 

Both girls would have given much to have avoided going 
through the ceremony of the dinner-table, and the subsequent 
evening in the drawing-room; both equally longed for and 
dreaded the hour that was to come afterwards. And they 
walked down to the drawing-room side by side, each with her 
brain and heart teeming with thoughts, and fear, and doubts, 
all relating to the same set of circumstances, and yet all as 
wholly difierent the one from the other, as if they had been 
conceived by creatures of two difierent species. 


END OF PART IX, 


19 


2D0 


LINDISFAEN CHASE, 


l^art Eentfj. 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 

THE TETE-A-TETE. 

At lasfc the long evening wore itself to an end ; and the two 
sisters went up stairs together, and turned into Kate’s room, 
for the conversation which both of them almost equally 
dreaded, though with feelings and from motives as contrasted 
as it was well possible for them to be. 

“ You need not wait, Simmons,” said Kate, as they entered 
the room ; “ Miss Margaret and I want to have a good long 
talk, before we go to bed; and we won’t keep you up. We 
will help each other to undress.” 

And then, as soon as the servant had closed the door behind 
her, the two girls sate down ; Margaret in a large easy chair, 
that stood at the foot of the bed, and Kate close by her side, 
but at right angles to the front of the large chair, on a small 
one, which she drew from the side of her drawing-table. 

Kate, who had generally plenty of colour in her cheeks, was 
paler than usual ; for she had been and was still suffering 
much ; and was moreover struggling against a sickening dread 
of what was coming. Margaret who was usually as white as 
a lily, had a bright spot of delicate colour in the middle of her 
creamy cheeks, the evidence of a febrile state of nervous agita- 
tion. Perhaps both girls were improved in beauty by the 
deviation from their ordinary appearance. 

Kate was the first to speak. 

“ I know already, Margaret,” she said, that what I dreaded 
frqn} your going tp Silyerton l^orping, has in faet hap. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 291 

“ Why ? Whafc do you know ? ’’ replied her sister, quickly 
and almost fiercely. 

“I know that you saw Mr. Falconer.” 

Kate would have said “ Fred Falconer,” on any other occa- 
sion ; as, in speaking to her godmother, or to any of her own 
family, she was ordinarily in the habit of doing. The feel- 
ing which made her now speak differently is very readily 
understood. But Margaret marked and resented the little 
change. 

“ How do you know that ? ” rejoined she, with flashing 
eyes. 

“Because Mr. Mat told me that he saw him cross the Close 
with my uncle, and go into the house with him, when he re- 
turned from the service in the Cathedral.” 

“ That odious animal again ! ” thought Margaret, jotting 
down the new offence in the long bill against Mr. Mat posted 
in her memory ; and meeting it all the same with prompt pay- 
ment in ready hatred. But all she said- was : — 

“ How does that show that I saw him, pray ? When I 
am at the Close, I stay in the drawing-room with my aunt. 
And Mr. Falconer of course went with Uncle Theophilus into 
the study.” 

“Did you not see him, then?” asked Kate, simply and 
directly. 

“ That is another matter,” replied Margaret ; who of course 
had no intention of denying what she had come there specially 
to confess ; and who had only fenced with Kate’s opening in 
the manner she had done, from an instinctive desire to put off 
for an instant or two more the disagreeable moment which was 
coming. 

“You did see him, then? Of course you did. Oh, Mar- 
garet ! I wish you had not gone to Silverton this morning. 
It was very imprudent under the circumstances. I do wish 
you had not gone,” repeated Kate, with so deep a sigh that it 
was almost a groan. 

“ Well ! I did expect a rather more sisterly reception for 
what I had to tell you, I do confess, Kate. I come to open 

my heart to you, and make no secrets between us, and 

and tell you everything, and you meet me wdfch reproaches and 
groans ? ” 

“ I meant no reproach, dear ; but for Heaven’s sake tell me 
at once what happened,” replied Kate, now thoroughly alarmed 
by her sister’s words and manner, 

19—2 


292 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


‘‘ Well ! What I have to tell is of a kind usually received 
with a very different sort of welcome, Kate, from that which 
you seem inclined to accord to my tidings.’’ 

“You don’t mean that ” said Kate, looking with Wge 

and affrighted eyes on the deepening colour in her sister’s face, 
and hesitating to shape her dread into words. 

“ I mean, Kate, that I was quite right in my estimation of 
the character of Mr. Falconer, as you have suddenly taken to 
call him. You remember our last conversation here ? You 
remember what I then said of Fred’s disinterestedness and 
superiority to all mercenary considerations? Well! I was 
right, Kate, in my judgment of him. That is all.” 

“ Do you mean that you told him of our loss of fortune — or 
rather of our never having had any fortune at all ? ” exclaimed 
Kate, whose fears began to point to a catastrophe in a new 
direction. 

“ Kate I ” exclaimed her sister, in a tone of strong remon- 
strance and virtuous indignation ; “ is it possible that you can 
suspect me of such baseness ? Do you really think that I 
could have under any circumstances betrayed the secret you 
confided to me in so solemn a manner ? No, my Sister, you do 
not know me ! ” 

“ I don’t suspect you, Margaret, but I can’t understand you ! 
What has passed between you and Falconer ? And what proof 
can you have had of his disinterestedness ? ” 

Thus pressed, Margaret paused a moment before making the 
decisive plunge, intently occupied with the thought how she 
could accomplish it most effectively and gracefully. Then, 
rising from her chair, and flinging herself on her sister’s 
shoulder, so as to hide her face among the abundant curls that 
hung around Kate’s neck, she whispered in her ear : — 

“ It is all settled between us. We are pledged to each other 
solemnly and irrevocably ! And he is the most generous and 

most disinterested of men; and he is coming up to the 

Chase to speak to Papa before breakfast to-morrow morning 1 ” 
“ Oh Margaret, Margaret ! What does it all mean ? Are 

you sure that What did you tell him ? Without betraying 

Julian’s secret, I don’t understand ” 

“ Why, won’t you kiss me and congratulate me, Kate ? ” said 
her sister, still hanging round her neck. 

“You know, Margaret, that your happiness is as dear to me 
as my own,” replied Kate, kissing her on the forehead in 
obedience to this appeal ; “ but I don’t understand how Fal- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


293 


eoner has proved his disinterestedness ; or what opportunity 
there was for anything of the sort, since you did not say a word 
to him about the change in our prospects.” 

“Ah, Kate ! you will persist in suspecting and misjudging 
IniA” said Margaret, in a tone of deeply sorrowing reproach. 
“Are you sure, my Sister,” she continued, drawing back her 
head, and looking steadily into the iunocent pellucid depths of 
Kate’s honest eyes, as if it were necessary to look very far 
down in order to read the truth at the bottom of their wells ; 
“ are you sure that there is no feeling at the bottom of your 
heart, which interferes with your congratulating me on my 
happiness as frankly and heartily as I had hoped ? ” 

“ Oh, Margaret ! wdiat are you dreaming of ? Only let us 
see clearly that there has been no mistake, no misunderstand- 
ing ; — that Falconer knows that in proposing to you he is pro- 
posing to a girl without a penny of fortune, and I will con- 
gratulate you, and rejoice in your happiness, my dear, dear 
Sister, believe me, as I would in my own. But I don’t under- 
stand it. Tell n>e, darling, how it came about, and all that 
passed ? ” 

“ Oh ! how can I tell you all that he said ? I suppose that 
such matters pass generally very much in the same way. But 
I can very accurately tell you what he did not say. He did not 
make any single allusion, much less any inquiry as to fortune 
or money matters from beginning to end. I assure you he was 
thinking of quite other things.” 

Kate’s face fell ; and a cold spasm clutched her heart, as her 
sister spoke. She had begun to hope from what Margaret had 
been saying, that somehow or other, though she could not quite 
comprehend how, it had come to pass that Falconer had become 
aware of the real state of the case, and had really taken the 
step Margaret announced him to ' have taken, with duly 
ojDened eyes. But her sister’s words cruelly destroyed any 
such illusion. 

“ Is that all ? Margaret, dear, that is not enough. You 
are deluding yourself Consider for a moment ! Of course 
Mr. Falconer spoke to you under the full impression that you 
were the heiress to half Papa’s property. If nothing were 
ever told him to the contrary, of course he thought so. He 
was justified in thinking so. Does not every other human 

being in Sillshire suppose so ? We only you and I only 

in all the world know that we have no claim to any such 
position.” 


294 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


But why will you persist in attributing your own merce- 
nary feelings to other people ? said Margaret, who found it 
impr/ssible to keep her temper as much under control as she 
had purposed doing. ‘‘ I tell you that Falconer had no such 
ideas in his mind. Ton must excuse me if I persist in be- 
lieving, extraordinary as it may seem to you, that I myself and 
not the Lindisfarn acres, was the object of his pursuit.’’ 

“ You know, Margaret, that I have no wish to say or think 
otherwise,” replied Kate ; “ but surely you would wish that 
anyone so addressing you, should not do so in ignorance of the 
truth on such a subject. Think whether you would like the 
telling him afterwards how the matter really stands. Think 
how intolerable it would be, and then judge of the necessity 
for preventing it ! ” 

“But how could I help it? You are so unreasonable, Kate 

so unfair ! You tell me facts, with the positive injunction 

to keep them secret, and then make it a matter of blame to 
me, that I do not blab them on the first opportunity. Would 
you have had me repeat to Falconer all that I had solenmly 
promised you to keep secret ? ” 

“ Of course you could not betray poor Julian’s secret.” 

“ Then I should like to know what you would have had me 
do?” 

“ You know, Margaret, dear, that I foresaw the danger and 
the difficulty. That was my reason for telling you the facts 
tliat had come to my knowledge. I saw that any offer of 
marriage to either of us, before we should be at liberty to let 
the truth be publicly known, would impose on us the necessity 
of refusing it, without being able to explain the circumstances 
under which we did so. It was very possible that such a difii- 
culty might have fallen upon you, even if you had done all 
in your power to prevent it. But I would have had you 
endeavour in every way to avoid it. I would have had you 
abstain from going’ to Silverton, as you know, this morning.” 

“ Kothing is easier than preaching, Kate ! I should like to 
. know what you would have done, if the case had been your 
own? Besides, was it just, or fair, or to be tolerated, that L 
should shut myself up, and not dare to show my nose out of 
the lodge gates, because a cousin, whom I had never seen, has 
put himself into such a position that his existence cannot be 
avowed? Not I, indeed ! I hate all such underhand doings 
and discreditable secrets. It is a sort of thing that I have 
never been used to.” 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


295 


I have no liking for secrets of any sort, Margaret ; and 
God knows that I long for the time when this one may be freely 
disclosed. But this secret is not of my seeking or making, nor 
of yours. We could not help ourselves. And it was very 
evident that the possession of it might place us in very painful 
circumstances. That is why I wished you as far as possible to 
avoid the danger you have fallen into. You would go to 
Silver ton ; and it has happened as I feared it might. And now 
the question is. What do you mean to do ? ” 

“ What is the good of talking in that way, Kate ? of course 
it is out of the question to betray Julian’s secret. What do I 
mean to do ? I have done all that I mean to do. He told 
me he loved me ; and asked me if I could love him. My 
answer was a frank and honest one. What could I do 
more ? ” 

“ But surely you must feel, Margaret, that it is impossible 
for you to let him enter into an engagement to you, sup- 
posing you to be heiress to half the Lindisfarn propeiTy, and 
you knowing all the time how sadly different your position 
is.” 

“I told you my feelings and principles on such subjects, 
Kate, when we spoke on this point before. I have been 
brought up to think that girls have no business to meddle 
with such matters. It appears to one who has had the advan- 
tage of such an education, exceedingly indelicate for them to 
do so. I shrink instinctively from all contact with con- 
siderations and business of the kind. I cannot enter into such 
things.” 

“ It may be,” said Kate, with a sort of dreamy musing, that 
you are right. But then what was so disagreeable for you to 
say, must be said for you by someone else. Papa must tell 
Mr. Falconer that ” 

“You don’t mean to betray poor Julian’s secret ? Think 
of the consequences ! ” cried Margaret, quickly, and with 
an alarmed glance at her sister’s face ; “ surely that is im- 
possible ? ” 

“ Yes, that is impossible. That is what makes the difficulty. 
But something must be done. Something must be said to 
Falconer before it is too late.” 

“ What is it possible to say ? ” rejoined Margaret, in much 
alarm. Then after a pause, during which her whole power of 
thinking was brought to bear intently on the subject, she 
added : “ if he were the sordid wretch you persist in imagining 


296 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


him to be, it would be quite enough to explain all these matters 
to him at any time before tViC marriage took place. But if, as 
I know right well, no such considerations would have weight 
with him, it would be as needless as useless to enter into the 
subject now.” 

“ But, dearest Margaret, you do not seem to see the matter 
in its true light. Of course it would be out of the question to 
make a marriage with one who supposed you to be a large 
heiress, while you were aware that you were nothing of the 
kind. And of course the marriage might be broken off when 
that fact could be openly told. But would not such a breaking 
off be very painful to us all ? Would it not be wrong to place 
any man knowingly in such a position as should compel him to 
any such breaking off ? But even that is not the worst. lam 
not so much thinking of protecting Mr. Falconer from the 
danger of making a bad match. What I am anxious about is, 
that you should not accept an offer, knowing well that it was 
made in ignorance of circumstances of which you were well 
aware.” 

“ But I am not supposed to know anything of the kind ! ” 
burst in Margaret, surprised into a naively sincere avowal of 
her insincerity ; “I should have known nothing of the kind, if 
it had not been for your officious eagerness 'to tell me bad news. 
I should have known nothing of the kind; and there would 
have been no difficulty in the matter ; ” urged Margaret ; for- 
getting honestly in her indignation, tliat had she not received 
the fatal information from Kate, she would assuredly have been 
in no such hurry to receive the offer, which she had that day 
extracted from Fred in so masterly a manner, in the Canon’s 
garden. 

“Oh, Margaret; ” said Kate, sorrowfully ; “I told you what 
I knew, only that you might avoid the embarrassment which 
you have fallen into.” 

“I see no embarrassment at all,” rejoined Margaret; — 
“ unless, indeed, you should think it right to complete the work 
you did when you told me this improbable story — (which I 
do not half believe) — by publishing abroad that you told it me.” 

“ Margaret ! ” almost shrieked Kate, as if she had received 
a sudden stab ; “ how can you speak such words ? And oh, 
Margaret, how can you persuade yourself to enter on such a 
path of duplicity ? You well know that you knew it, if nobody 
else were ever to know it.” 

“ It is all very fine preaching, Kate, especially in a case that 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


297 


is not one’s own. What could I do ? You admit that I could 
not tell him the secret. What was I to do ? What answer 
was I to make to him ? ” 

“ I should have declined his offer, Margaret,” said her sister, 
quietly. 

“ But it was not my wish to decline his offer ! And on what 
grounds, too ? Was I to tell him I hated him ? That would 
have been a lie. Spoken to, as he spoke to me, I could but 
confess the truth that I was not indifferent to him. What 
would you have had me say ? ” 

‘‘ I know that it was difficult,” said Kate, speaking still 
more quietly ; and with her eyes cast down to the ground. 

“ Surely, then, I took the only path that was open to me; all 
taken by surprise, too, as I was,” pleaded Margaret. “I 
hardly knew what I was saying. I only knew that it was im- 
possible to me to hide the truth from him. Could you expect 
me to be thinking of fortunes and marriage settlements at such 
a moment ? Don’t be too hard upon me, Kate ! ” 

“ Heaven knows, Margaret, that I have no wish to be hard 
on you ; but every wish to help you in any possible way. But 
remember, that it must needs be known that I, at least, was 
aware of Julian’s existence at the time when Mr. Falconer 
made his offer to you.” 

“ Why should it be known that the man who was wounded 
by the Revenue officers, and whom you visited in his illness at 
Mr. Pendleton’s cottage, fwas our cousin, Julian Lindisfarn? If 
he recovers, as there seems to be little reason to doubt that he 
will, and goes away back again to France, as soon as he is 
able to move, why should we say anything about the matter 
at all? Why cause so much unnecessary pain and sorrow 
to all our relatives ? Of course he will come forward in due 
time to claim his inheritance. There is no chance of his fail- 
ing to do that. Why need we move in the matter till then ? 
And why need it ever be known to anybody that you were 
aware of his existence before the time when it may become 
known to all the family ? ” 

“ It is bad enough to have to keep the secret till he goes 
away,” said Kate, with a sigh that was almost a groan ; “ but, 
Margaret,” she added quickly, and looking keenly into her face 
— ^for the progress of the conversation was rapidly generating 
very painful misgivings in Kate’s mind — “you cannot dream of 
absolutely marrying any man, who is under the delusion that 
you are a heiress ! ” 


298 


LINDISFAM CHASE. 


‘‘ Oh ! of course not that,” said Margaret, while a hot flush 
suflused her face — ‘‘ when it conies to the business part of the 
matter, and the lawyers, and all that, of course all such things 
will be properly explained and put right. But since we cannot 
tell the real truth at once, and that by no fault of ours, I 
cannot see that we are bound to make difficulties for ourselves, 
and sorrow and trouble for others, by interfering in the matter. 
Surely under the circumstances of the case, it would be more 
sisterly, Kate, to abstam from betraying the fact that I knew 
of the matter when Frederick proposed to me this morning. I 
could not tell him, you know. And yet he might think that I 
ought to have done so. It is very, very hard ! I do think, 
Kate, that you might spare me this.” 

And as she spoke she threw those eloquent eyes of hers, with 
a wistful and almost tearful glance of entreaty in them, on her 
sister’s face, in a manner that Kate’s heart could not resist. 
Kate had but little notion of the falsehood practised by tongues. 
But that human eyes also should tell lies was an idea that had 
never been dreamed of in her philosophy. 

She did feel it “very hard,” as Margaret had said, that the 
fatality of circumstances should make it impossible for her to 
pursue her usual staightforward path of frank and thoroughly 
open truthfulness. And it did occur to her mind for a passing 
moment, that it was “very, very hard ” that Ellingham should 
never come to know that she had made the discovery of her 
own want of fortune, all but immediately before her refusal of 
his suit. He would come to know it, of course. But what 
would she not have given for the assurance that he should be 
made aware that she was in possession of the fatal secret at 
the time of her rejection of him ! And it was very bitter to 
her to think that this fact might never be knov/n to him. 
Nevertheless, if consideration for her sister were to prevail so 
far as to induce her to consent to a suppression of the facts 
known to her, for a longer time than her promise to her cousin 
rendered necessary, assuredly the gratification of her own feel- 
ings with regard to Ellingham should not induce her to expose 
her sister’s want of openness. And in all probability the sense 
of self-sacrifice operated in some degree to reconcile her con- 
science to the connivance with the suppression of the truth, 
which was asked of her. Had her own interests pointed in 
the same direction with Margaret’s in the matter, it may be 
safely assumed that she would not have yielded to the latter’s 
pleading. 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


299 


As it was, she began to feel, as Margaret looked up in her 
face, that she should not have the courage to condemn her to 
the exposure that would be involved in the making known her 
acquaintance with the fact of Julian’s existence. The idea of 
the agony which she would herself have felt if she had accepted 
an offer of marriage under such circumstances, and had after- 
wards been discovered to have known all the time that she was 
a penniless bride, was too vividly present to her mind for it to 
be possible for her to sentence her sister to it. 

“ Would to God,” she said, looking pitifully at her sister, 

that this had not happened ! Would to God, that it could 
have been avoided ! ” 

“ But now that it has happened so, you will not denounce 
me, Kate ? ” said Margaret, perceiving that her sister’s tender- 
ness for her was getting the upper hand in her mind. 

“ Denounce you, Margaret ! ” 

“ You will not declare that I knew this hateful secret, which 
I had no desire to know, and which I was bound by my pro- 
mise to you not to disclose ! ” 

“ No, I wdll not, Margaret. I will say nothing on the sub- 
ject. God forgive me, if it is wrong ! I do not sec clearly 
what is right in the matter. I will not say any words that 
shall bring disgrace or blame upon you.” 

“ And you will not, immediately after Julian’s departure, 
take any steps to noise abroad the fact of his being still alive ? 
You would only be blamed, for having concealed it while he was 
here.” 

“But, Margaret, that must, at all events, be told. You 
cannot let things go on, you know, till ” 

“ Of course, of course, Kate ; I know that. But leave the 
things alone. Let the facts disclose themselves at the proper 
time. Why should we meddle in the matter ? ” 

“ Only, if things were to come to a crisis between you and 
Falconer, you know, Margaret, before the circumstance of 
Julian’s life had become known, it would, in that case, be abso- 
lutely necessary for us to disclose the truth.” 

“ Oh yes ! Of course, of course ! But things will not come 
to a crisis, as you call it, so soon as all that. I am in no great 
hurry. Depend upon it that Falconer will and shall know the 
whole state of the case before anything is definitely settled. 
But promise me, that you will not denounce me as having 
known the truth all the time ! ” 

“ But you seemed just now, Margaret, to think that it did 


300 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


not matter whether you knew it or not ; and that, in any case, 
it was no business of yours to pay any attention to it, or to 
speak to Mr. Falconer on any such subject.” 

“And so I do think,” returned Margaret, sharply; “those 
are the ideas and feelings in which I have been brought up. 
But if I have been led astray by the difference of ways and 
manners in this part of the world, I can’t help it ! I am quite 
convinced in my own mind that the knowledge of Julian’s exist- 
ence, and the effect it may have on my fortune will not make any 
difference in Fred’s feelings towards me. To my ideas, it seems 
absurd to suppose that it could do so. If I am anxious not to 
be known to have been aware of certain circumstances this 
morning, it is in deference to your ideas, Kate, rather than to 
my own.” 

Kate had nothing ready to reply to this. There was a slip- 
pery agility about her sister’s fence, that was altogether too 
much for the steady, straightforward, perfectly open march of 
ideas that was habitual to her own mind. 

“ I wish I had not told you anything about it, Margaret ! ” 
she said, after musing a little while, and sighing deeply as she 
spoke. “ It did not seem to me at the time at all sisterly not 
to tell you. But now I think that it would have been for the 
best to keep it from you. Perhaps I was wrong ! ” 

“ I confess I think you were, Kate. I am quite sure that I 
should have much preferred knowing nothing about it. I hate 
all business matters.” 

“ I did as I would have wished you to do by me in such a 
case, Margaret. Nevertheless, I say perhaps I was wrong. 
And I will not take upon myself to interfere with your conduct 
in the matter by any acts or words of mine ” 

“That is all I ask of you, Kate. That is my own dear 
Sister ! ” exclaimed Margaret, with much effusion of manner. 

“ Unless, indeed,” continued Kate, speaking with evi- 

dent reluctance, “ any acts or words of mine should be neces- 
sary to prevent a marriage being absolutely made, without the 
real state of the case being known.” 

At the beginning of the conversation between the two girls, 
Kate would never have thought of making any such proviso 
as the above. And she would hardly now have admitted to 
herself that there was any necessity for it. But, despite her- 
self, an unreasoned and unavowed consciousness had come into 
her mind since the discussion began, that instinctively prompted 
her to utter it. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


301 


A dark shade passed over Margaret’s face, like a cloud before 
the moon, save that it passed more rapidly than any storm- 
cloud. It was gone in scarcely more than a second, and the 
lightning flash from the eyes, that had accompanied it, passed 
from them as rapidly. But there was a dangerous and scathing 
look about it, during the moment it lasted, that would have 
seemed to any more observant and skilled interpreter than 
Kate, eloquent of anything save sisterly love. 

But the cloud flitted past, and the flash died out as suddenly 
as it had shot forth — and Margaret only said, with a sort of 
impatient manner — 

“ Of course, of course ! Gelob va sans mot dire ! So now, 
dear Kate, we understand each other. I am so glad. And 
now will you not congratulate me on my happiness? For 
indeed I am very happy.” 

What could Kate say ? She had the most perfect convic- 
tion that no marriage would take place between Frederick 
Falconer and any undowered lady, be she who she might. It 
was difficult to furnish the congratulations required of her on 
such a prospect. She could only say that she did most sin- 
cerely rejoice in anything which was for her sister’s happiness. 
And that safe generalisation passed muster very satisfac- 
torily. Margaret had been victorious in the great battle she 
had come into that room that night to fight ; and she was 
content. 

“And now, Katie dear, it is high time for us to go to bed. 
Good gracious ! it is near one o’clock ! And we must both be 
up in good time before breakfast to-morrow morning. He is 
to be here to speak to Papa in his study before the bell rings. 
And I have promised that he shall find the way prepared for 
him. So that I must see Papa first ; and I had intended to 
have done so over night. But I would not speak till I had 
consulted you, dearest, of course. And I could not get an 
opportunity of doing that till now. So that we shall be 
pressed for time in the morning. And what I want is, that 
if I am with Papa when he comes, you should receive him, 
and ” 

“You do not want me to say anything to him ? ” 

Again the thunder-cloud passed over the fair face, and the 
evil-looking lightning flashed from the superb eyes. But it 
was only for a fragment of a moment. 

“ Pooh ! make yourself easy, Kate ! I only want you to 
compromise yourself so far as to bid him good morning ; and 


302 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tell him that I am speaking with Papa, and that the coast will I 
be clear for him in a minute/’ 

But the statement of the duty thus assigned to her, did not 
by any means tend to make Kate easy,” as Margaret had so 
flippantly said. It led her, on the contrary, to the considera- 
tion that even thus, at the very outset, she would be taking an 
active part in promoting an engagement between her sister j 
and Falconer, she being in possession of information which she , 
was very sure would have prevented him from contemplating ' 
anything of the kind, if he had shared it. Something must, of * 
course, be said on the subject between her and Falconer. And 
what could she say ? How could she so guide herself as not to 
be guilty, in her sister’s behalf, of that which, on her own 
behalf, she had kept herself clear from at the cost of so much 
agony and self-denial ? How was this to be done ? And as 
these thoughts rushed through her brain, her heart sank within I 
her. 

But Margaret had meanwhile risen from her seat, and was | 
leaving the room with a nodded Good night,” as considering 
that her last words had quite sufficiently settled the programme j 
for the following morning, and that there was nothing more to 
be said on the subject. Kate felt that it was impossible for her 
to accept the part assigmed to her. A whole vista of similar 
and still worse difficulties and troubles opened itself mistily and 
indistinctly before her. How she should fight through them 
she did not know, nor could she now pause to consider. But 
this first step to-morrow morning she felt that she could not 
take. And it was absolutely necessary to refuse it on the 
instant. 

“ Stop, Margaret ! ” she cried, in her desperation, “ stop 
a moment ; that will never do. I would rather not see 
Mr. Falconer to-morcow morning. I cannot do it ; indeed I 
cannot ! ” 

The words seem plain enough. But words are but symbols, 
plain only to those agreed upon the ideas they are used to 
symbolise. One man says, I told such and such things to 
another ; and he takes it for granted that he put into the mind 
of that other the thoughts that were in his own. But the eye 
can see only that which it is given to it to see ; and the mind 
can conceive only the ideas which it is capable of conceiving. 
And Margaret accordingly interpreted Kate’s words according 
to the key supplied by her own head and heart. 

^<Why Kate! I had no idea of this,” sho said, taming 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


303 


round at the door of the room ; “ upon my word I had not ; ” 
and as she spoke, there was a strange contradiction between 
the expression of her eyes and that of her mouth. The former 
spoke with their usual eloquence of grave and regretful 
sympathy, while an irrepressible smile of gratified triumph 
and conscious superiority mantled about the latter. And it 
was a curious fact that the former feature told the lie that was 
needed, in their owner’s opinion, for the occasion, while it was 
left to the latter to tell the unsuppressible truth. In the case of 
most performers, the reverse would in all probability have been 
the case. It was not so with Margaret. Most of the lies she 
told were told by her eyes — those beautiful large eyes — tender, 
confiding, beseeching, fierce, vindictive, languishing by turns. 
They, and the expression of them, were more under the perfect 
and habitual control of the mistress, who made such frequent 
and snch effective use of them, than even the muscles of that 
habitual tell-tale of the afiections, the mouth, which in that 
lovely young face could speak lies, but had not yet acquired the 
habit of looking them. 

But Kate was too much engrossed by her own painful 
thoughts, and too little in the habit of meeting with or sus- 
pecting falsehood anywhere, to note that her meaning had been 
misapprehended. And when Margaret, in accents of ill-con- 
cealed triumph and gratification went on to say, that if that 
were indeed the state of the case, she would not for the world 
expose Kate to the pain of such an interview ; and that after 
all it would be quite sufficient if Banting were to tell Falconer 
on his arrival, that Miss Margaret was with her Papa, and 
that the Squire would be happy to see him if he would wait a 
few minutes ; Kate was delighted to catch at such a means of 
escape, and assented thankfully to the arrangement. 

So the sisters parted for the night ; — Kate determining that 
she would not appear in the morning till after breakfast, when 
Falconer should have left the house ; and Margaret victorious, 
and congratulating herself on the masterly manner in which 
she had brought to a successful termination, an interview to 
which she had looked forward with so much apprehension. 

But it was long before either of the sisters fell asleep. 
Kate’s mind was busy with painful previsions of the embarrass- 
ments and difficulties which seemed to unfold themselves before 
her in more and more threatening numbers and proportions, 
the more she meditated on the subject. And Margaret set to 
work to rovie?/ her position, and Kate's conduet as regarded 


304 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


by tlie aid of the new light, which she fancied had been thrown 
upon the subject by Kate’s last words. 

“ So, so, so, so ! ” thought she, “ that’s the explanation, then, 
of all the difficulties, and scruples, and pack of nonsense, 
is it ? Well ! It is quite as well to know it. But I think 
I can distance Miss Kate at one game as easily as I have done 
at another. Yes ! I am glad I know how the land lies ! ” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

SPEAKING TO PAPA. 

Margaret was a frequent offender against that primal law 
of the Lindisfarn social code, which commanded that all those who 
lived under it should appear in the breakfast-room, what time 
the incorruptibly punctual ]\Ir. Banting, who never delegated 
that important function to any inferior hand, rang the morning 
bell. Margaret was a frequent and almost privileged offender ; 
— for how could the great cardinal virtue of coming down to 
breakfast punctually in time be expected from one who was not 
only not Sillshire,” but not even English-bred ? 

But on the morning after the conversation recorded in the 
last chapter. Miss Margaret was up betimes. The Squire was 
understood to be generally in his “study” half an hour or so 
before breakfast ; and it wanted nearly as much as that to the 
morning bell-ringing, when Margaret, not altogether without a 
little quickening of the heart-pulse, but still with an exceed- 
ingly creditable degree of self-possession, tripped to the door of 
the study, and after the pause before it of some half a minute, 
gave a little tap against the panel with the knuckles of her 
slender little pink hand. 

It was very evident that Margaret’s early appearance from her 
chamber had not been obtained at the cost of any abbreviation 
of the cares of the toilette. To do her justice, it must be 
admitted that Margaret had retained enough of English nature 
and English instinct amid the influences of her Parisian edu- 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


305 


cation, to preserve her from the abominable continental sin of 
compensating finery for show hours by slovenliness in hours of 
privacy. She was always tiree a quatre epingles; — always 
dressed with perfect freshness and taste. But on the present 
occasion an educated eye would at once have observed that the 
exquisitely pretty toilette de matin in which she appeared at the 
Squire’s study door was the result of more than usual care and 
consideration. There was candour, gentleness — nay, even a 
foreshadowing of young matronhood in the pale glossy folds of 
the pearl-grey silk dress, lighted up, as by a flash of passionate 
girlhood, by the rich deep rose-coloured necktie, and tiny wrist 
knots, which set oflP so admirably the fair wearer’s marble- white 
throat and hands. Then there was a modish little scrap of a 
rich black silk apron whose girdle helped to call the eye to the 
outline of the slenderest of waists, while it gave just the 
slightest flavour of housewifery to the entire composition. 
The dark satiny hair was dressed as charmingly as usual, but 
there was a little tribute to sentiment in one smoothly rolled 
ringlet, rather too regular in outline to be quite innocent of the 
irons, which strayed from under the niass of plaits and rested 
on the pearl-grey bodice. In truth, Margaret’s costume on the 
morning in question was a grand success, in which every 
slight artistic touch had its importance, from the piquant 
rosette on her slipper to the demure little black velvet Jeanette 
with tiny gold cross and heart, then a recent importation from 
France, which encircled her alabaster throat. 

The Squire’s hearty, jovial voice from within, in a tone like 
that of a somewhat modified view-holloa, bade her “ Come in, 
whoever you are,” in answer to her modest tap ; and on opening 
the door she found the old gentleman standing with his legs 
wide asunder on the rug, with his back to the “ study ” fire, 
busy in putting a new lash to a dog- whip, holding the while 
the end of the bit of whip-cord between his teeth. 

The Squire, with his tall and well-grown person, his clear, 
healthy, rosy complexion, and his handsome features, with the 
kindly gleam from his honest laughing blue eye, his pleasant 
smile, and his reverend silver locks, was as attractive a pre- 
sentment of age as was Margaret of youth. But somehow or 
other they did not give an impression of being well-assorted. 
Very great, mysteriously great, is the power of that education, 
which is imparted to human beings by all the united influences 
of everything that surrounds them during the process of 
development from childhood to man and womanhood. It is so 
' 20 


306 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


great as to throw doubt on all our speculations respecting the 
possible identity or divergence of races. Here were two twin 
children ; Sillshire had made one of them into our darling peer- 
less Kate, and Paris had made the other into our incomparable 
Marguerite ! African and Caucasian ! Ham and Japhet ! 
Why had not the skin of the Paris girl already become of a 
different colour and texture from that of the Sillshire lass ? 
Psychological differences ! I should think there were psycho- 
logical differences, — capable of being tolerably satisfactorily 
described by a shorter word ! Physiological characteristics ! 
I only know that Kate used always to seem to carry about with 
her an atmosphere redolent of hedge-roses, and the morning 
dew on the sweet-briar, while Margaret scented the fanning 
breeze with bouquet de millefleurs. I believe that if her blood 
had been analysed, a residuum of the oxide or chloride of 
bouquet de millefleurs^ or some such thing, would have been 
found in it. 

Kate Lindisfarn by the side of her father always seemed the 
due and thoroughly satisfactorily completion of an admirably 
composed picture. The group was thoroughly harmonious. 
There was no such harmony, no such artistic keeping, in the 
group formed by Margaret and the Squire. 

None the less kindly, on that account, however, was the 
Squire’s greeting as Margaret entered his study on the occasion 
in question. 

“ What, Margaret ! ” he cried, in the mellow but somewhat 
stentorian tones, to which his Parisian daughter confessed she 
had not yet been able to accustom or reconcile herself ; but he 
had never once since that evening of Marguerite’s first arrival 
relapsed into the sin of calling her “ Margy.” “ What, Mar- 
g’aret ! you afoot so early this morning ? What’s in the wind 
now? And upon my word, what a picture of a dress ! I make 
you my compliments on the success of your toilet, my dear ! 
Come and let me have a closer look at you.” 

And as he spoke, the Squire, holding the handle of his dog- 
whip in one hand, and the end of the lash in the other, playfully 
threw it over her head, so as to encircle her waist, and draw 
her thus imprisoned towards him. Margaret gave a little 
uneasy wriggle very plainly expressive of her not altogether 
unpardonable fear that the usage she was being subjected to 
might inflict damage on some portion of the work of art, on 
which so much pains had been bestowed. The Squire perceived 
it, and after impressing' one kiss on her forehead, very much 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 307 

with the air and action of a man walking on eggs, released 
her. 

“ I wanted to speak to you, Papa, if I may ; and I thought 
that this would be the most convenient time for catching you.” 

“ Any time, any time, my dear ! But what is it, my dear 
child ? ” said the Squire, somewhat nervously ; for he could not 
imagine what could be coming ; and had a kind of presentiment 
that something at or about the Chase was going to be com- 
plained of. 

“I will only trouble you a very few minutes Papa ” 

“As many as ever you like, my darling ! We have five and 
twenty before Banting rings the breakfast-bell ! ” said the 
Squire looking at his great silver hunting-watch, and seeming 
to consider that length of time as an infinity beyond which no 
imaginable conference could prolong itself. 

Margaret did not exhibit any degree of unusual emotion or 
embarrassment. She did not bite her thumbs, or more ele- 
gantly hide her face on her father’s shoulder. She cast down 
her eyes, however, beneath their long and silky lashes, with a 
very pretty little bending of her arched neck, and twining the 
tasselled cord of her apron round her two forefingers as she 
thus stood by her father’s side, she said in a very demure, but 
yet in a sufficiently business-like manner : 

“ Yesterday, Papa, I received a proposal which, of course, it 
is my first duty to communicate to you immediately.” 

“ A proposal, my child ! What, you don’t mean a proposal 
of marriage ? ” 

“Yes, Papa! It was a proposal of marriage. Although, 
according to the ideas of those among whom I was educated, 
it is proper that such a proposal should be made in the first 
case to the parents of the young person, I believe that it is in 
this country considered permissible to address such a communica- 
tion to herself.” 

“ Yes ! ” said the Squire, scratching his head, and looking at 
his exquisitely elegant daughter with a mixture of admiration 
and curiosity ; “ in this country we generally make love to the 
girls themselves, rather than to their fathers and mothers. 
But who is it, my pretty one, who has asked for the present of 
that pretty little hand ? Who is the bold man ? And what 
answer did he get from ‘the young person’ herself? ” 

“It is Mr. Frederick Falconer, Papa ; of course my answer 
necessarily was, that he must apply to you.” 

Apply to me ? Well ! Yes — that is aU right and proper. 

20—3 


308 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


Very proper ! Bat I suppose the young gentleman wanted 
some answer from you first.” 

“But of course, you know, Papa, I could give him none 

except altogether conditionally on your approval and 

pleasure.” 

“ And was he contented with that ? ” said the Squire, with a 
twinkle in his clear blue eye, and a look which was meant to 
be the quintessence of archness. 

Margaret, however, did not give the slightest countenance to 
any unbecoming levity, by responding in any way to these 
demonstrations. 

“ From all that I have seen of Mr. Falconer, Papa, and still 
more from what I have heard of him, especially from my aiint, 
Lady Sempronia, since I have been in this country, I should be 
led to suppose that he would not expect any other reply from 
me,” returned Margaret, with a grave propriety of accent and 
bearing, that the old Squire felt to be a slap in the face for his 
improper levity. 

“ But if I am to give him his answer, my dear child,” he 
said, more gravely, “ I at least must first learn from you what 
sort of answer you would wish it to be.” 

“ In that, my dear father, I should wish to be entirely guided 
by your superior knowledge and by your advice.” 

The Squire scratched his head, and stared at her with the 
blank, puzzled look of a man suddenly called upon to act in 
the midst of a whole world of circumstances entirely new to 
him. 

“ Well ! That is all very right and proper,” he said at last ; 

“and I am sure, my dear, I shall be most happy that is, as 

far as my power goes, but, you see, the first question is 

it seems to me But what does Kate think about 

it?” he added briskly, as the bright idea struck him that her 
mediation between himself and the embarrassingly superfine 
propriety of his Parisian daughter might powerfully tend to 
facilitate matters. 

“I believe my sister has a very good opinion of Mr. Fal- 
coner ! ” replied Margaret ; and a slight passing flush, that 

passed across her face as she said the words, was the first sign 
of emotion of any sort which she had betrayed since entering 
her father’s room. 

“Yes; I have a very good opinion of Mr. Falconer, too,” 
replied the Squire. “ I have known him from a boy. I never 
knew any ill of him. And I have heard much good. I believe 


lindiSfarn chase. 


309 


he has always been a very good son. I don’t know tha,t he is 
exactly the man I should fall in love with, if I were a young 
lady. But then,” continued the Squire, quite gravely, for he 
had no inclination to incur a second reprimand for levity, and 
was, in truth, applying himself to the task imposed upon him 
to the best of his ability ; — “ but then God only knows what 1 
should do or should feel, if I were a young lady. I suppose 
most things would seem very different to me then, you^know. I 
can’t say I like Fred’s seat in the saddle. And Mr. Mat says 
he is Jemmy Jessamy. But then, perhaps, you don’t care about 
his riding ; and yon are not bound to follow Mr. Mat’s opinion. 
If it were Kate now, the way he sits his horse might count for 
something.” 

“ I do not think my sister would consider Mr. Falconer’s 
mode of riding any objection to him in the point of view which 
is now under consideration. Papa,” replied Margaret; and while 
she was speaking the slight flush again passed over her face, 
accompanied this time by an almost imperceptible toss of the 
head. 

It occurred to the Squire’s recollection at that moment, that 
he had heard his old friend. Lady Farnleigh, call Freddy Fal- 
coner a prig ; and the thought did flash across his mind for an 
instant, accompanied rather than followed by a self-accusing 
feeling of penitence for having conceived it, that perhaps he 
and his foreign-bred daughter were all the better adapted to 
each other on that account. 

But he only said in answer to Margaret’s last words, “I 
daresay not, my dear. I daresay not. And, really, my dear 
child, I do not laiow that I can say anything more or better to 
to you on the subject, than that, if he has contrived to win that 
quiet undemonstrative little heart of yours, I do not know of 
any objection to him. I do conscientiously believe him to be a 
very good young man. And that, I take it, is about all that I 
ought to look to in the matter. The rest is your own affair ; 
and can only be decided by yourself. In this country, my dear, 
we think that love should precede marriage, as well as follow 
it ; and I own that I should be very sorry to see you marry 
any man to whom you were not sincerely attached. But if 
Fred Falconer has really been able to make himself agreeable 
to you, as I said before, I do not know any just cause or 
impediment why you two should not be joined together in holy 
matrimony;” thus bringing to a conclusion — neatly and 
forcibly, as he flattered himself, — the longest oration, in all 


310 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


probability, which he had ever uttered ; though his sense of 
rhetorical propriety would have been more completely satisfied, 
if the circumstances of the occasion would have allowed him to 
add the words, “ he is now to declare it.” Still, the Squire was 
contented with his effort; and having clearly expressed his 
views on the subject, and at the same time done, as it seemed 
to his mind, due homage to the seriousness of the occasion, by 
winding up his period and the subject with the time-honoured 
and quasi semi-sacred formula he had hit on, he appeared to 
consider that he had said and done all that was or could be 
then and there expected of him in the premises. 

But it was now Margaret’s turn to look into her father’s face 
with blank and puzzled surprise. To her comprehension of the 
matter, he had been babbling upon a variety of trifling and at 
all events secondary matters, to the total forgetfulness of the 
one thing needful. Not a word or an allusion to the point 
which ought to form the main and special object of the solici- 
tude of any right-principled father or guardian! Or was it 
that the Squire, being, as a prudent father should be, perfectly 
well-informed as to the fortunes, prospects, and expectations of 
every young man in the neighbourhood, amd having the 
knowledge that things were satisfactory in this respect in the 
case of Fred Falconer, thought that she, Margaret, was too 
young and too silly to be spoken with on such a subject ? If, 
indeed, her father were unprincipled enough to neglect his duty 
to his child, and leave her unprotected in this respect, it was 
the more necessary that she should take care of herself. If, 
on the other hand, the second hypothesis were the true one, 
and the fact were that her father deemed her still too much of 
a child to speak to on matters of serious business, she was not 
at all sorry to have an opportunity of showing him that such 
was by no means the case. 

So she said, first raising her eyes for one quick observant 
glance into his face, and then dropping them on the floor, as 
she stood in front of him ; “ I suppose. Papa, that you would 
disapprove of any marriage that was not a suitable one in point 
of fortune and position. I have always been educated to believe 
that no happiness can be expected from any such union, and 
that nothing is more unpardonable in a well brought up young 
person, than the slightest thought even of forming such a 
mesalliance. But of course I know nothing about such matters. 
It is my duty to leave all such entirely in your hands.” 

The old Squire felt as if there would be nothing left for him 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


311 


but to listen meekly and strive to profit by it, if the astonisli- 
ingly ‘‘ well brought up young person,” standing then on the 
rug before him, had seen fit to favour him with an exposition of 
the whole duty of man. 

So he replied, with no little feeling of awe for that exquisitely 
dressed incaimation of perfect propriety, “ Of course, my dear 
Margaret, of course ! It is a very necessary consideration. 
Happily, I believe that in the present case there is no cause for 
any hesitation on that score. No doubt Master Freddy will be 
very comfortably well off.” 

“ I suppose. Papa, you will think it right to be very explicit 
in speaking on this topic with Mr. Frederick Falconer ? ” 
and the manner in which the name was pronounced, succeeding 
in administering a fitting reproof to the old gentleman for 
the irreverence he had permitted himself in speaking of his 
august daughter’s intended as “ Master Freddy.” 

“Well, my dear; I have always understood, and indeed I 
may say I know, that old Falconer is more than well off, — 
that he is a wealthy man ; and Frederick is his only son. 
But of course the lawyers must have a finger in the pie, before 
it comes out of the oven, and it will be for them to look into 
the matter properly.” 

“Yes, Papa. And is it not the mode in England for tliQ 
lawyers to write down all about it, before the marriage is 
arranged ? ” inquired his daughter, with charming girlish 
naivete. 

“ Quite so, my dear. Settlements we call them. The settle- 
ments must be made properly, of course.” 

“ And all that I have, or ever shall have, must be written 
down in them, too, must it not. Papa ? ” 

“ Yes, my dear, I suppose so. I am not much of a lawyer ; 
but I suppose that is the proper way.” 

“ And you call it by such a funny name ! Tying up. I have 
heard dear Madame de Renneville talk of tying up. I re- 
member it because it is such a queer expression. I suppose 
the lawyers must tie me up. Papa ? ” she said, raising her eyes 
as she spoke, and shooting point blank into the Squire’s face 
a sunny beam of girlish mirth. And again, the same strange 
phenomenon occurred, which had been observable in this re- 
markable “ young person ” on a former occasion. Her mouth 
did not join in the smile of her eyes, but remained quite gravely 
busied about the serious business in hand. It needed, however, 
a far more observant and skilled physiognomist than the 


312 


LTNW8FARN CHASE. 


Squire, to take note of this. He was divided between pleased 
admiration of the exceeding prettiness of the face and figure 
before him, and marvelling admiration of the range of know- 
ledge a ^‘jeiine persoiine hien elevee ” might be expected to 
possess. 

“ Yes, my dear ! You must be tied up, I suppose, as you 
say; or at least, your fortune must. And, by the by, that 
brings nie to a point, which I can hardly say, I think, that I 
ever considered at all, so much has it always been in my mind 
as a matter of course. I have but you and Kate, my child, 
you know, and there is neither oldest nor youngest between 
ye. Of course, all I have will be yours between you. And 
the matter has never come into my mind in any other light. 
But what you say about settlements puts it into my head, that 
the sharing of the property between you is not a matter of 
course, but depends on my will.” 

Margaret’s eyes were by this time quite concealed beneath 
their long drooping lashes ; but her mouth was more seriously 
occupied with the business in hand than ever. For an instant 
Margaret feared that she had, perhaps, been injudicious in 
leading her father, as she had purposely and with admirable 
skill done, to speak on the subject of his intentions respecting 
hiis property. 

“ Of course,” the Squire went on to say, ‘‘ I never had any 
thought upon the matter, but that you would share and share 
alike. But for that to be so, I must make it so ! And if 
settlements are to be made, I must make it so then. Afterwards 
I should have no power to alter the arrangement,” added the 
Squire, speaking somewhat gravely. 

“ It would never have entered into my head, of course. Papa, 
to think of, much less to inquire into your intentions on the 
subject. Only it seemed possible that Mr. Falconer, or his 
father for him, might think it right to know my position in 
this respect.” 

“ Has anything been said between you on the subject ? ” 
inquired the Squire. He would never have dreamed of making 
such an inquiry of his Sillshire Kate. But he was beginning 
to feel as if he should not be a bit surprised if it should turn 
out to be the correct thing for a ^^jeune personne hien elevee, 
upon an occasion such as the present, to pull out of a dainty 
little apron pocket a rough draft of a settlement ready pre- 
pared by her own fair fingers. 

“Oh, nOf Papa ! not a syllable ! I am sure Mr. Falconer 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


313 


would not have been guilty of such an indelicacy for the whole 
world. Indeed, I think that in all probability he has not given 
a thought to the subject. But his father, you know, Papa, 
will probably wish to know.’^ 

“ Of course, my dear ! And it is quite right and necessary 

that he should know ; and quite proper that Mast that Mr. 

Frederick should wish to know, too. I only said that the 
matter presented itself to my mind for the first time. Well ! 
I think I may say that I shall be ready to tell Mr. Falconer 
that I am prepared to settle on you upon your marriage with 
his son, one-half of this property. As for what I may be able 
to do for you during my lifetime, it would require a more 
leisurely consideration, you know ” 

“ Oh, of course. Papa, of course ! I am sure that nothing 
can be further from Frederick’s intention than to dream of 
speaking to you upon any such subject when he comes to speak 
to you this morning.” 

“ This morning ! Bless my soul ! Is he coming this morn- 
ing ? ” cried the Squire, rather startled. 

“Yes! I have very little doubt, that he is at the Chase 
already. Papa 1 He was so impatient ! I could hardly prevent 
him from coming up here last night. But I thought that it 
would be more agreeable to you to see him in the morning. 
May I tell him that he may come in to speak with you, dear 
Papa ? ” said she, casting a pleading look on the Squire, as she 
spoke. 

“Of course, my dear, of course I will see him. But stay 
one moment, Margaret. When did all this happen, eh ? ” 

“ AZZ, Papal ” she answered, with the prettiest little half-shy, 
half-laughing glance into his face that it is possible to con- 
ceive, followed by the demurest dropping of the conscious eyes 
to the ground ; “ I can hardly tell you when it all happened I 

But it was yesterday at my uncle’s in Silverton that that 

I told him he might speak to you. May I tell him to 

come in, Papa ? I am sure he is waiting most anxiously to 
see you.” 

“ Pray tell him I shall be most happy to see him,” said the 
Squire, adding as he once again looked at his watch ; “ and, 
dear me I the sooner the better. We have only five minutes 
left before the bell rings 1 ” 

“ Oh, that will be quite enough, Papa, to give your consent 
in ! ” said the jeune ^personne with a bright smile, tripping to 
the door as she spoke. 


314 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


She found that Frederick had been true to his word — of 
which she had not felt absolutely certain — and had already 
arrived at the Chase. All had passed exactly as had been 
settled between the sisters over night. Kate had not made 
her appearance. She had told Simmons to make her excuses 
to Miss Immy, and tell her, what was perfectly true, that she 
hardly slept all night, and she was now endeavouring to get a 
little sleep. And Mr. Banting had, as instructed, told Mr. 
Frederick on his arrival, that Miss Margaret was in her Papa’s 
study, but that if he would walk into the breakfast-room for a 
few minutes, the Squire would then be happy to see him. 

I suspect from a certain look, which, though veiled beneath 
the exterior semblance of perfectly respectful deference, might 
have been detected hanging about the muscles of Mr. Banting’s 
face, as he communicated this intelligence to Mr. Frederick, 
that that well trained domestic knew the nature of the busi- 
ness which had brought the young gentleman to the Chase at 
so early an hour, as well as any of the parties more immedi- 
ately interested in it. He performed his part, however, with 
the most undeniable propriety ; and Mr. Frederick, looking as 
little conscious as he could, awaited his summons in the break- 
fast-room, devoutly hoping that neither Miss Immy, nor Kate, 
and still less Mr. Mat, might come in and find him there before 
he should be called to the Squire’s study. 

Margaret, however, flitted into the room while he was still 
alone there ; and Frederick, with a glance that sufficed to 
prove to her that the care she had bestowed upon her charm- 
ing toilette had by no means been thrown away upon him, was 
about to avail himself of some of the little privileges which 
are usually understood to belong to the prerogative of an 
accepted lover. But Margaret, with one of those little evo- 
lutions which sometimes seem to be as natural and as easy to 
girls as wriggling is to eels, and sometimes as utterly impos- 
sible to them as movement is to the bird fixed by the fascina- 
tion of the eye of a serpent, escaped him, saying at the same 
time in great haste : 

“ It is all right, my own I I have seen Papa ! He is ex- 
pecting you in the study. But he says he has only five minutes 
to spare before the breakfast-bell rings. And no earthly con- 
sideration would induce him to abstain from coming out into 
the breakfast-room directly it does ring. So, make haste. 
Bun along ; you Imow the way. I will wait for you out on 
the terrace.” 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


815 


So Frederick did as he was bid ; and found the five minutes 
quite enough for the transaction of his business with the blunt, 
simple-hearted old Squire. 

“ How do, Fred, my boy ? said the old man, extending his 
hand to him in a cordial and kindly greeting* ; “ glad to see 

you always; and not sorry to see you on the business 

which brings you here this morning.” 

“My dear Mr. Lindisfarn ! If I have dared ” 

“ Ay ! Margaret has told me all about it ! Well ! I see no 
objection. I have known you, Fred, man and boy, since you 
wore long clothes ; and I do believe that I may as safely trust 
my girl’s happiness to you as to any man. You have been 
abroad ; and sometimes I have thought that you brought 
home with you some foreign ways and tastes. If it is so, per- 
haps you and Margaret may be all the better suited to each 
other. You know pretty well what to look to with her. I 
have no thought, and never had, of making any difference 
between my two girls. As to what you can say, on your side, 
and as to what your father and I can do for the young house- 
hold before the old birds hop the twig, of course he and I 
must talk it over together. But as far as I can see, I know of 
no objection ; and I wish you joy with all my heart. So now 
come to breakfast. For Banting will ring in one half-minute.” 

Frederick, however, escaped as they were crossing the hall ; 
and ran out to join Margaret on the terrace. 

“ Nothing can be kinder than your father, my own darling ! ” 
he said. “ He spoke in the frankest and kindest manner of his 
intentions towards you in regard to property, and such matters. 
But of course I cared little to listen to all that, having other 
thoughts in my head ; and was heartily glad when he said 
that all those subjects must be talked over between him and 
my father.” 

“ Will you not come in to breakfast, dearest ? Kate will 
not be down. You must submit to be congratulated by them 
all some time or other, you know.’’ 

“ But not this morning, my own darling. I cannot stand 
Mr. Mat this morning. It is dreadful to have to tear myself 
away from you. But there would be no pleasure in sitting by 
you under the eyes of all the party at breakfast ; and I am sure 
you would rather be spared it.” 

“ Well, perhaps you are right ! Au revoir, then ! ” 

And as they had by that time reached the corner of the 
terrace, where there was a spot not commanded by the break- 


316 


LINDISFAKN CHASE. 


fast-room windows, or any others likely at that hour to be 
oecLipied, she permitted him to encircle her waist with his arm 
for an instant long enough (a la rigueur^ for the taking of one 
kiss, selected out of the whole scale of kisses (which is a long 
one), with a view to its exact fitness to the proprieties of the 
occasion ; and then dismissed him. 

Margaret then returned to undergo the ordeal of the break- 
fiist-room, mth a calmness inspired by a sense of having been 
and shown herself perfect mistress of the situation, and having, 
at least thus far, managed her somewhat difficult affairs with 
the hand of a master. 

Frederick returned to Silverton, not discontented, yet not so 
thoroughly well pleased with his morning’s work as his lady- 
love. He had a certain sense of having been out-gener ailed, 
which was not agreeable to him, rather from the hurt it in- 
flicted on his amour propre, than from any real reason he had 
to be dissatisfied with things as they were. He had meant to 
win Margaret ; and he had won her ! But had he not unneces- 
sarily “put out his arm further than he could draw it back 
again ? ” 

It was not till he reached the Ivy Bridge at the bottom of 
the ascent to Silverton, that it occurred to him, that what 
Margaret had said about receiving the congratulations of the 
party assembled in the breakfast-room, implied the abandon- 
ment of that plan of keeping their engagement secret which 
had been agreed on between them. 

And Frederick bit his lips as the thought flashed into his 
mind. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


317 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE LINDISFARN JAWBONE. 

Kate Lindisfarn was an especial favourite with Dr. Blakistry. 
There was nothing odd in that ; for she was an especial favour- 
ite with all the country side in general, and with a singularly 
large number of individuals of all classes in particular. But 
the doctor having neither chick nor child, as the phrase goes, 
and being, therefore, driven to look abroad for somewhat to 
care for, to love, and to pet, had enlisted himself in a special 
manner, and assumed a foremost place in the motley corps of 
Kate’s devoted slaves and adherents. 

Not that the strength of this allegiance had been needed to 
induce Dr. Blakistry to ride out to Deep Creek Cottage, and 
give the desperately wounded man lying dying there, as was 
thought, the benefit of his skill and care. For the Doctor was 
a humane man, and, indeed, somewhat of a medical Quixote, 
holding’ and acting on the theory, that the diploma which 
marked him as a student of the laws of nature, and dubbed him 
as learned in them, constituted, as it were, his letters of ordi- 
nation as a high-priest in her service, and invested him with 
the mission, the privilege, and the duty of combating’ with 
human (physical) error, and suffering wherever it could be met 
with. He would gladly, therefore, have turned even farther 
aside out of his way, than it had been necessary to do, to visit 
the wounded smuggler, in whatever way the knowledge of his 
case had reached him. But Kate’s summons had the effect of 
making the case and the patient additionally interesting to 
him. 

And jihere was yet another cause, which, after his first visit 
to Deep Creek Cottage, had operated to arouse Blakistry’s curi- 
osity, and give him yet another source of interest in the case. 
The excellent M.D. was an enthusiastic theorist, as M.D.’s 
mostly will be, who aspire to be anything more than mere rule 
of thumb practitioners, and as M.D.’s should be, so long as 
they can love their theories only second best after, and not 


318 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


better than truth. Dr. Blakistry was an enthusiastic theorist. 
And some of his theories were wise ; and some were partially 
so ; and some were but fancy-bred crotchets. Dor he was but 
a mortal M.D. after all. 

Well, one of Blakistry’s theories was, that certain features 
of the human face are more liable than others to be changed 
and modified in the transmission from one generation to another, 
by all the accidents of education and mode of life ; and that 
others are much less liable to alteration from such circum- 
stances ; that they are more persistent, therefore, in races of 
mankind and in families, and more trustworthy as guides to 
probability in questions of filiation and the like. The jaw- 
bone, and especially the lower jawbone, was, according to Dr 
Blakistry, the most reliable feature in the face for such pur- 
poses, being the least liable to alteration by circumstances be- 
falling the individual subsequently to his birth. Now it so 
happened that the Lindisfarn family afPorded the Doctor a case 
strikingly corroborative of his theory. All the Lindisfarns, 
however unlike they may have been in other respects, had their 
lower jawbones of the same shape. The peculiarity was suf- 
ficiently marked to have become long since notorious in the 
country ; and of course to the eye of a scientific observer (and 
one whose pet theory it especially served to confirm), it was 
yet more noticeable. 

It was not without a start of surprise, therefore, that Dr 
Blakistry had, in the first instant of looking at his patient in 
Deep Creek Cottage, recognised in his pale and bandaged face 
the true Lindisfarn jaw. 

Dr. Blakistry was displeased. Of course he was! What 
business had this smuggler from the coast of France with the 
Lindisfarn jaw ? Was he to come there with his jaw to spoil, 
or at least injure, one of the finest illustratory cases of his 
favourite theory ? And then, as the Doctor’s active mind went 
to work upon the subject, he began to think whether it might 
be possible, that the phenomenon under his observation should 
prove a case in favour, rather than one militating against, the 
Blakistry jawbonian theory. • 

It was a strange coincidence, to begin with, that he should 
be called by no other than Kate Lindisfarn to visit that jaw- 
bone, so unmistakable to him, though others might easily fail 
to observe it in a face changed by suffering, disfigured by 
wounds, and partially concealed by bandages. Mrs. Pendleton 
was Kate’s old nurse. True ! But was that fact to be accepted 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


319 


as sufficiently explaining so curious a combination of circum- 
stances? And then, as the Doctor mused on these facts, it 
occurred to him that he had heard from somebody or other, 
since he had settled in Silverton, some story about there having 
once been a male heir to the Lindisfarn property — a son of the 
Canon’s, who had gone wrong, and had died in America — all 
long before he, Blakistry, had come into that part of the 
country. 

Died in America. Humph ! Any way, that fellow lying 
there with the broken head has the Lindisfarn jaw if ever a 
man had. Well ! Nature knows nothing about the legiti- 
macy or illegitimac^r of marriag’es and births. Who can tell? 
Our friend at the Chase there, old Oliver, was young once, and 

did not marry early, as I have heard. Any way Mrs. 

Pendleton ! ” 

The last words, uttered aloud, were the result of the Doctor’s 
soliloquy, or rather of his musings, as represented by the above 
phrases ; and they were uttered as he was on the point of be- 
ginning to descend the steep zigzag path, which led from the 
smuggler’s abode to the bottom of the cliff, where he had left 
his horse in charge of one of the Pendleton children. He 
turned back towards the house as he spoke, and Mrs. Pendleton 
came out and across the little garden to meet him. 

‘‘ I have no doubt of that young fellow’s recovery if due care 
is taken, as I have told you. The patient’s constitution seems 
to be singularly old for his apparent years ; nevertheless ” 

And here the Doctor, glancing up at the little bedroom 
window, which was open, at no great distance from the spot 
where they were speaking, drew Mrs. Pendleton a few steps 
down the zigzag path, so as to be safely out of the sick man’s 
hearing. 

“ Nevertheless,” he resumed, “I have little fear but that 

we shall bring him round. Still aS it will in all probability 
be some time before he is able to be moved, and as it may be 
that those who love him are in pain and anxiety about him, 
and as your husband himself will doubtless be anxious to hear 
how he is going on, it seems very desirable that he should be 
communicated with on the subject.” 

“It may be very desirable. Sir; so is a many other thing in 
this world ; but they can’t be had for all that,” said Sirs. 
Pendleton, with rather a hostile and defiant air. “When 
Pendleton’s away,” she added, “I never know where to find 
him ; over in Prance, as likely as not ! ” 


320 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Look here, Mrs. Pendleton ! ” said the Doctor, gazing 
steadily, hut with a pleasant smile, into her face, and gradually 
closing one eye till that feature executed a wink that a horse- 
dealer might have been proud of ; “ Look here ! I am not a 
lawyer, nor a Pevenue officer, nor a magistrate, nor a con- 
stable ! I am a doctor. My business all the world over is to 
cure trouble, not to make it in any way or kind. Doctors are 
always trusted. You may trust me ! ’’ 

“ And suppose some of them as their business is to hunt an 
honest man down for striving to earn a bit of bread for his 
wife and children by honest labour, should ask you in the name 
of the law, where Hiram Pendleton was a- hiding, what should 
you say ? ” 

“ What should you say, Mrs. Pendleton, if they were to ask 
you ? 

“ I should tell them they was come to the wrong shop for 
information ; and if they wanted him, they had better look for 
him.” 

“Well! that is just about what I should say. But they 
won’t come to me, never fear. We doctors are always hear- 
ing all sorts of secrets from everybody; but nobody ever 
expects us to tell them. The world would come to a pretty 
pass, if the doctors were to tell all they know. No 1 You 
may tell me where Mr. Pendleton is, safe enough. If he 
never gets into trouble till he gets into it through me, he’ll do 
well ! ” 

Thus exhorted, Mrs. Pendleton yielded. Indeed, the view 
of the medical profession presented to her by no means involved 
the reception of any new ideas into her mind. Men whose 
lives are exposed to the risks and chances which attend such a 
career as that of Hiram Pendleton, are in the habit of consider- 
ing the doctor as a confidant and friend. Old Bagstock would 
have been trusted by Mrs. Pendleton, and frequently was 
trusted by the anti-legal world of Sillmouth with a variety of 
secrets, which his Majesty’s Revenue officers would have been 
very glad to get hold of. And Dr. Blakistry had that additional 
claim to confidence, one which never fails to exerfc a singularly 
powerful influence over persons in Mrs. Pendleton’s sphere of 
life — arising from being a gentleman- -a circumstance of differ- 
ence between him and Dr. Bagstock, which was not at all the 
less clearly and palpably recognisable by Mrs. Pendleton, 
because she would have been utterly unable to explain wherein 
it consisted. 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


321 


So she said, in reply to the doctor’s persuasive words and 
looks : 

‘‘ Well, then, the truth is, Doctor, that Pendleton is not twenty 
mile away from here at this moment. He is hiding out on the 
moor. I don’t justly know where he is at the present speak- 
ing ; for he is obligated often to change his quarters. But if 
anyone was at Chewton, — that’s fifteen miles out on the moor, 
or thereaway, — they would not be far off from him. And old 
Jared Mallory, him as is parish clerk at Chewton, is sure to 
know exactly where he is.” 

“ The parish clerk ! ” 

‘‘ Ay ! the parish clerk ! seems queer, don’t it, going to the 
parish clerk to inquire for a such a one as Hiram Pendle- 

ton. Next akin like to going to the parson for him ! But 
Jared Mallory is like what you was a saying. Sir, of the 
doctors. There is no telling the secrets and strange things as 
old Jared Mallory have a knowed in his time, of all sorts and 
kinds, and of a many sorts of persons. And there is no fear 
of his splitting. But if you whisper in his ear,” — and Mrs. 
Pendleton whispered the words into that of the doctor, “ ‘ Fair 
trade and free, says Saucy Solly, ^ he will bring you to speech 
with Pendleton.” 

“Very good ! I won’t forget. Thank you, Mrs. Pendleton. 
You shall never have any cause to regret having trusted me.” 

So the doctor rode back to Silverton in a meditative mood, 
convincing himself more and more irresistibly with every fur- 
long he rode, that either that jawbone he had been looking at 
was the jawbone of a genuine Lindisfarn, or that there was an 
end of all scientific certainty in this world. 

The next day Dr. Blakistry mounted his horse immediately 
after breakfast, and turned his head in the direction of the 
moor. He had first to ride down Silverton High Street, which 
makes a steep descent just before reaching the bridge over 
the Sill, and the adjacent low parts of the city, and then to 
cross the river. On the other side of the Sill the road immedi- 
ately begins to ascend the high ground towards Wanstrow 
Manor. But shortly branching off at the lodge-gates, and 
leaving the park to the right hand, to take a direction nearer 
the coast, it gradually leaves the cultivated lands behind it, 
passes through a border district, in which little low dykes have 
replaced hedgerows, and feeble attempts at cultivation struggle 
at disadvantage with the thankless nature of the peaty soil, 
and then enters on the bleak solitude of the trackless moor ; — 
21 . 


322 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


trackless as far as eye can reach, save for the one good road 
which crosseg the whole extent of it. At long and distant in- 
tervals, however, an almost impassable track is met with, lead- 
ing off from the high road to some of the few villages buried 
in the depths of the wilderness. How these lost settlements 
kept up any communication at all with the rest of the world 
before the high road, itself a creation of quite modern times, 
existed, it is hard to say. To the present day the moor- 
landers are a wild and peculiar people. At the date of the 
events narrated in this history, they must have been yet more 
so ; and before the construction of the road that now cuts 
the moor in half, they must have been isolated and wild 
indeed. 

Dr. Blakistry had ridden fast — for there was a cold, raw 
mist lying on the moor — about eight miles along this modern 
high road, before he came to the opening of a very unpromising 
looking track turning off from it to the left — in the direction 
of the sea-coast, that is to say, — at the corner of which was a 
wan and gibbet-like finger-post, on which the words “ Chewton 
7 miles ; ” were still with some difficulty decipherable. 

The doctor turned accordingly. But the same rapid rate of 
progress which he had hitherto made was thenceforward im- 
practicable. The track began by making a very steep dip into 
a boggy hollow, then climbed out of it by a still deeper stair 
of crags. Here and there, for a short distance, it was pos- 
sible to trot over a bit of springy turf-covered peat. But for 
the most part the track alternated between bog and craggy 
rocks. For miles there was not a living creature to be seen, 
nor a sound, save now and then the ripple of a tiny stream, to 
be heard. Then, on rounding one of the huge boulder-stones, 
which here and there form landmarks on the surface of the 
moor, a scanty flock of small sheep, the greater number of 
them black, were found availing themselves of the shelter from 
the wind-driven mist afforded by the huge stone, and profiting 
by the patch of greener herbage which had produced itself by 
favour of the same protection. And soon after that a church- 
bell was heard ; and then, among a few trees, a belfry became 
visible, and the doctor knew that he had at length reached 
Chewton. 

They always rang the church-bell at Chewton at mid-day ; 
assigning as the all-sufficient reason for doing so, that such 
had always been the practice. It cost some trouble to do it, 
of course. And nobody in the place had the remotest idea of 
any good beinsr done by it to anybody. But it was not usually 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


323 


done in other parishes ; and it always had been done at 
Chewton. And Chewton felt a pride and a gratification in 
these circumstances. In all probability, the isolation of the 
place had helped to preserve the old ringing of the Angelus in 
Catholic days, athwart all chances and changes, to the present 
time. 

At the entrance of the village, which seemed to be more of 
a place than Dr. Blakistry had expected, he got off and led his 
horse. The way led toward the main street of the village, 
round the low wall of the churchyard. The bell continued to 
ring as he skirted it ; and a little child sitting on the old 
fashioned stone stile over the churchyard wall, and belonging, 
in all probability to the ringer at his work within the church, 
was the first living being the doctor saw in Chewton. It was 
a magnificent little fellow about ten years old ; and the doctor 
stopped to learn from him if he could tell the way to Jared 
Mallory’s house. But the words died on his lips, when the 
child, looking up into his face, upon being spoken to, exhibited 
to his gaze a perfectly well-defined specimen of the Lindisfarn 
jawbone ! 


END OF PART X., 


324 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 




CHAPTER XXXT. 

THE JAWBONE TELLS TALES. 

Why, good heavens! ’’ ejaculated Dr. Blakistry to himself, 
as he stood with his horse’s bridle over his arm, looking down 
into the wondering upturned face of the handsome child, as it 
sat motionless on the stone slab of the churchyard stile, 
“ why, good heavens, there it is again ! ” 

It meant the Lindisfarn jawbone. For in truth that special 
form of feature was very markedly traceable by a practised 
physiognomist, in the child’s face. And a disagreeable thought 
shot across the doctor’s mind, like a cold ice-wind, that it 
might be possible that the formation in question was merely 
one feature of a provincial type, and not the special inheritance 
of a particular family. This, however, was a point to be 
cleared up, if possible, at once. So the doctor made a dash 
at the heart of the matter by asking : 

“ Can you tell me where your father is, my little fellow ? ” 

Grandfather is in the church a ringing the mid-day bell 1 ” 
replied the child, looking up into the doctor’s face with a fear- 
less but much-wondering gaze, and speaking in the broadest 
and purest Sillshire Doric ; “ I’m a waiting for him.” 

“ And what is your name, my boy ? ” returned Dr. Blakistry, 
smiling kindly. 

“My name’s July Mallory, and my grandfather is parish 
clerk of Chewton,” said the child with an assumption of much 
dignity in making the latter announcement. 

“Ay, indeed I And is your father at home, July,” said the 
doctor. 

Mother is at home,” replied the boy ; jerking his beautiful 
gold-ringleted head towards the church door as he added, 


TINDISFARN CHASE. 


325 


“ Grandfatlier is coming home to dinner, as soon as he has 
rung the mid-day bell.’’ 

“ And where does your mother live, my fine little fellow ? 
I want to see her,” said the doctor, stooping to pat the 
abundant golden tresses that clustered around July Mallory’s 
cheeks and neck, and to get a nearer and more searching 
look of the shape of the lower part of the child’s face as he 
did so. 

Yes ; there was no mistake about it ! If there were any 
truth in the doctor’s pet theory, — if he were to be delivered 
from the horrible necessity of violently pulling out one fa- 
vourite opinion from the faggot of opinions, which most men 
bind up for themselves by the time they have lived half a 
century in the world — of violently pulling out this big stick of 
the faggot, and thus loosening, who could say how irreme- 
diably, the whole bundle — if this evil were to be avoided, it 
must be shown that little July Mallory was a Lindisfarn. 

The reader, if he have not forgotten those particulars of 
Julian Lindisfarn’s early life, which were briefly related in 
the opening pages of this history, will of course have at 
once perceived that the doctor’s theory was in no danger, 
and that little July Mallory had every right to the feature 
in question. And there was patent to Dr. Blakistry a con- 
catenation of circumstances, which indistinctly and uncertainly 
was leading him towards a shrewd guess at the truth. There 
was that stranger, with the broken head, representing himself 
as a French smuggler, but marked by the Lindisfarn jaw in 
the most unmistakable manner. His favourite, Kate herself, 
who was every inch a Lindisfarn, had it not more decidedly. 
Then he was summoned by Kate to visit this stranger, and 
implored by her to send up special news of the result of his 
visit to the Chase. Then this mysterious stranger was found 
at Sillmouth, in close connection and association with the 
Pendletons, and Hiram Pendleton, the smuggler, was evi- 
dently in close connection with these Mallory s. Then again 
the little July Mallory had said nothing about his father ; 
had plainly ignored any such relationship, when Blakistry 
had asked him about his father. That name “July” too. It 
was a Julian Lindisfarn, as Blakistry distinctly remembered 
to have heard, who had “gone to the bad,” and vanished, 
having died, as it was said, in America. And now this July, 
short for Julian, Mallory ! Yes ; there certainly was a plank 
of safety for the theory, shadowed out by these circumstances ! 


326 


IIKDISFARN CHASE. 


“Mother lives in that house there, where the smoke is 
coming out of the chimbley. That’s the rashers as mother is 
a frying for dinner. When the smoke comes out of the 
chimbley like that, when grandfather is a ringing the mid-day 
bell in the church, there’s always rashers for dinner,” replied 
the young inductive philosopher. 

“ What, in that large house there, my young Baconian ? ” 
said the doctor, smiling to himself, as a man may be permitted 
to smile who perpetrates so wretched a pun for his own 
private use alone (for private and unsocial vices cannot be 
visited by social laws as those are and ought to be, which 
affect society); “in that house there, with the stone roof?” 
he said, pointing to one very near at hand, at the bottom of 
the village street, somewhat larger and more solidly built than 
the cottages on either side of it, and distinguished from them 
by being roofed with the grey rugged flagstones of the moor, 
instead of with thatch. 

“ Yes ! ” said the child ; “ that’s where Grandfather, and 
Mother, and I lives ; and I hnovj there’s going to be rashers 
for dinner to-day,” he added, gazing earnestly at the smoke, 
and reverting unceremoniously, after the fashion of children, to 
the point of view which interested him in the matter. 

“ Grandfather, Mother, and I,” repeated the Doctor to him- 
self. hfot a word about father? “And I hnovo^' he solilo- 
quised, after a moment’s musing, “that you are a Lindisfarn, 
by the same rule that teaches you that there will be rashers for 
dinner, my little man ! ” 

“ Well, I shall go and see your mother, July,” added he, 
aloud ; “ and I daresay I shall see you and your grandfather 
when you come home to dinner.” 

And so saying, the doctor giving a pull with his arm to the 
bridle, which was hanging over it, as an intimation to his 
horse that it was time to cease tasting the heathery gamy- 
flavoured moorland herbage, at the foot of the church- 
yard wall, on which he had been engaged while his master 
was holding the above conversation, proceeded to walk in 
the direction of the house which had been pointed out to 
him. 

Two stone steps, with an iron rail on each side of them, led 
to the low-browed door, in the middle of the front of the 
house ; and a little wooden paling, very much out of repair, 
though evidently some two hundred years or so younger than 
the iron rail and the rest of the house, fenced in from the 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


827 


street a space about two feet wide in front of tbe dwelling 
on either side of the entrance. The door stood open ; and 
the doctor, hitching the bridle of his horse over one of the 
rails, entered without ceremony. The front door gave im- 
mediate admission to the main living apartment of the house, 
the “ houseplace,” as it is emphatically called in the northern 
counties. This was the dining hall, and also the kitchen of 
the inhabitants ; and there, within the shelter of the huge 
old-fashioned fireplace, was a woman, still young, at least 
for those who will admit a life of some eight and twenty 
years to be so designated, and still, fiir more incontestably, 
very handsome, engaged, as the youthful inductionist had 
predicted, in frying rashers of bacon. 

“ This is the house of Mr. Jared Mallory, is it not. Madam? ’’ 
asked the doctor, as courteously saluting the occupant of the 
chamber, as if she had been reclining on a sofa, and making 
eyelet holes in muslin. There was in the remarkable beauty 
of the woman, and also, as the doctor fancied, in an unde- 
finable something about her manner and bearing, a certain 
amount of additional evidence in favour of the chance that the 
Lindisfarn jawbone would be found to be in its right place, 
and the pet theory be saved after all ! 

Yes, Sir, this is Jared Mallory’s house. Have you business 
with him. Sir ? ” replied the woman, making a courtesy in 
return for the doctor’s salutation, civilly, but withal, in a grave 
and distant, if not with a repelling manner. 

‘‘ Yes ! I have ridden over to Chewton from Sillmouth 
on purpose to speak with him. I am a physician, and a 
friend of Mrs. Pendleton’s, who lives at Deep Creek Cottage. 
My name is Dr. Blakistry.” 

Bab Mallory, “ the moorland wild- flower,” — for, as the 
reader is well aware, it was to her and to no other that 
the doctor was speaking, — had not thought it necessary to 
lay aside the occupation on which she had been engaged when 
her visitor entered. She remained under the deep shadow of 
the great projecting fireplace, but with the red light of the 
fire, at which she was cooking, on her face and figure. She 
retained in her hand the long handle of the frying-pan, con- 
structed of a length, which would admit of its being used at a 
fire made on a hearth raised only a few inches from the floor, 
without compelling the person using it to stoop inconveniently; 
but turned herself partially so as to look towards the stranger. 
The hand unoccupied by the frying-pan was on her hip ; and 


328 


LINDISFAJRN CHASE. 


the quick movement by which this unemployed left hand 
started to a position a few inches higher up on the side, and 
was pressed convulsively against it, was, therefore, not neces- 
sarily a very noticeable one. And the sudden deadly pallor 
which, at the same moment, overspread the beautiful, but 
almost olive-coloured face, seen as it was in the artificial lurid 
light of the fire, might easily have escaped the observation of 
a less keen and practised observer than Dr. Blakistry. Neither 
of these indications escaped him, however ; and connecting 
them by a rapid and habitual process of inductive reasoning 
with the Avords of his which had evidently produced them, the 
doctor thought he saw in them another gleam of light on 
the mystery he had ridden across the moor to elucidate, and 
another probability of salvation for his theory of the heredi- 
tary nature of the shape of the jawbone. 

The daughter of Jared Mallory, who knew all about the 
affairs of the Saucy Sally and her owners, and who was the 
mother of that beautiful child yonder, with the unmistakable 
Lindisfarn jaw, was violently agitated at hearing that a phy- 
sician had come out from Deep Creek Cottage to see her 
father. Humph ! 

He paused for some word of reply, which might serve to 
throw further light on the subject of his speculations, and 
confirm the suspicions which were now verging towards con- 
viction. 

But Bab Mallory had not had the weight of an ever-present 
secret on her heart for ten long years for nothing ; and was 
not so easily to be thrown off her guard. 

‘‘ Sweet are the uses of adversity,” we are told on high 
authority, not altogether unbacked by some gleanings from 
still older wisdom. Yet, upon the whole, it may be doubted, 
perhaps, whether that opinion be not one of those formed 
by the world in its younger day, w^hich the advantage of its 
longer experience and riper wisdom may lead it to modify. 
Surely the uses of prosperity are quite as frequently sweet 
with fruit of the highest and most durable savour. Surely, 
the “uses” are quite as frequently, nay, more frequently, 
bitter and evil than sweet. I am inclined to think the greater 
number of those human plants which do not thrive to any 
good purpose in the soil of prosperity and happiness, would 
groAV yet more stunted and deformed in the unkindly soil of 
adversity and unhappiness. It is old-fashioned physiology 
which supposes that cold bleak mountain tops are the po- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


329 


sitions most favourable to human health. And I am disposed 
to think that the psychological doctrines analogous to it, are 
not entitled to much greater weight. 

Though Bab Mallory’s life, up to her eighteenth year, had 
been not altogether an uncultivated one — for that strange old 
Jared Mallory, her father, amid his varied avowed and un- 
avowed occupations, was not altogether an uncultured man — 
yet a sufficiently wild and rough one, she had never known 
anything fairly to be called adversity till then. Up to that 
time she had been the wild-flower of the moorland, as healthy, 
morally as well as physically, as lovely, as sweet with as 
wholesome fragrance as the heather around her. Then ad- 
versity had come, and its uses had not been sweet to her. 
The open, fearless eye of innocence had been changed into the 
hard, bold eye of defiant resistance. Easy-hearted trustfulness 
had become ever-present mistrust. The highspirited self-re- 
liance, which is the substratum of so many a great quality 
and virtue, had been corrupted into the cankered pride, which 
seeks refuge from wounds, and at the same time finds an 
unwholesome nourishment, in isolation. 

No ! poor Bab Mallory had not been made better by adversity. 

Open-heartedness had, of course, gone, together with so much 
else ; and when, after the lapse of a moment, she had recovered 
from the heart-spasm which Dr. Blakistry’s words had caused 
her, she only replied to them, by saying quietly, as she turned 
a little more towards the fire, and the occupation which made 
an evident excuse for her doing so, 

“ My father will be home very shortly. Sir. Will you please 
to take a seat ? Have you been acquainted with Mrs. Pendle- 
ton for long. Sir ? ” she added, after a short pause, as the 
doctor complied with her invitation. 

“ No, not very long. I had no acquaintance with her, indeed, 
till I was called to her cottage to visit a wounded man lying 
ill there, by a young lady who is a friend of mine. But we 
soon made friends, Mrs. Pendleton and I. It is a doctor’s 
business, you know, to make friends, and be a friend, wherever 
he goes.” 

Dr. Blakistry had watched the patient on whom he was 
operating narrowly, as he spoke ; and he had not failed to 
mark the little involuntary start, though it was a very slight 
one, which had been elicited from poor Bab, by his purposely 
introduced mention of the “ young lady ” who had summoned 
him to the wounded smuggler’s bedside. 


330 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“Yes, a young lady, it was, and a very charming young 
lady too, I can assure you, who called me to visit a patient 
at Deep Creek Cottage ! ’’ added the doctor, answering that 
little start, and choosing to let her know that he had ob- 
served it. 

“ It was very kind of a young lady, and a little out of place, 
too, was it not. Sir, for a young lady to be interesting herself 
about a poor wounded smuggler ? ” said Bab, attempting to 
turn the tables, and do a little bit of pumping in her turn. 

“You know, then, that the sick man is a wounded smug- 
gler ? ” returned the doctor, showing poor Bab at once how 
little she had taken by her motion. 

“ It is little likely that he should be anything else ! ” re- 
turned Bab, darting an angry flash of her dark eyes at the 
doctor, as she spoke. But the flash was only momentary, 
and quickly died out into the quiet observant look of habitual 
caution. 

The rashers were cooked by this time, and the amount of 
attention needed for transferring them from the frying-pan to a 
dish, and placing the latter, carefully covered, by the side of 
the braise on the ample hearth, supplied an excuse for abstain- 
ing from any further reply for a few moments. When the 
operation was completed she resumed the conversation, having 
quite got the better of her sudden gust of anger, and again 
essaying to turn the pumping process on her visitor. 

“ One need not be very ’cute” she said, “ to guess that a man 
lying wounded in Deep Creek Cottage must be a smuggler ; 

at least for those who know anything of Hiram Pendleton. 

But here comes Father, Sir ; I am sorry you should have had 
to wait so long, but now yon can dispatch your business at 
once.” 

Jared Mallory, who entered with his grandson, as she spoke, 
was a tall and upright old man, considerably older, apparently, 
than Bab Mallory’s father need have been. He looked nearly 
if not quite, seventy. But, though his figure seemed to have 
shrunk from that of a man muscular and broad in proportion 
to his more than ordinary height, to a singular degree of gaunt 
attenuation, he bore about him no other obvious mark of the 
decrepitude of age. His attitude was upright, even stiffly so. 
His head was abundantly covered with long iron-grey locks, 
which were only just beginning to turn more decidedly to silver. 
His features were good — must have been handsome — and there 
was an air of superiority to the social position he occupied, 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


3B1 


and even of dignity, about him, wliich, though remarkable, did 
not seem to challenge so much notice, or to be so much out of 
place, as it might have done thirty years previously. It was in 
due keeping with one’s conception of the village patriarch, if 
not with that of the parish clerk, or still less with that of the 
confidant and accomplice of smugglers. 

After the first little start of surprise, Mr. Mallory bowed 
courteously to the stranger in his house, at the same time, 
however, turning on his daughter a look of very unmistakable 
inquiry. 

“ This is Dr. Blakistry, from Sillmouth, Father, who has 
ridden over the moor to speak with you about a wounded man, 
whom he has been attending in Hiram Pendleton’s cottage at 
Deep Creek,” said Bab, in reply to the look ; and Dr. Blakistry 
could observe the same sudden manifestation of interest in the 
old man’s face, which the same announcement had called forth 
in the no less carefully guarded features of his daughter. 

‘‘Hay, Mr. Mallory!” replied Blakistry, “your daughter’s 
interest in my patient at Deep Creek has led her to jump to a 
conclusion which nothing I have said has warranted.” 

Bab tossed her head at this, with an air of much annoyance 
and impatience. 

“ I said,” resumed the doctor, “ that I had been attending a 
wounded man — your daughter here tells me that he is a smug- 
gler ; I daresay that may be so — at Deep Creek Cottage, that 
I was a friend of Mrs. Pendleton’s, and that I had ridden over 
to speak with you.” 

“ I am acquamted with Mrs. Pendleton, Sir ; and I shall 
be happy to attend to you. Bab, perhaps you had better go 
into the parlour for a few minutes, and take the child with you.” 

“ Oh, no 1 pray do not do that. You are just going to 
dinner : I will not detain you more than a minute or two ; and 
I have no further secret than just this, which, as I was told to 
whisper it, I whisper it accordingly.” 

And the doctor, advancing a couple of strides to the old 
man’s side, whispered in his ear the pass words, “ Fair trade 
and free, says Saucy Sally 1 ” 

Bab, who had seemed much more inclined to be guided by the 
visitor’s hint that she might stay, than by her father’s intima- 
tion that she had better go, turned towards the hearth, and 
stooped to occupy herself with her cookery ; but, as the doctor 
did not fail to perceive, remained eagerly attentive to what was 
passing. 


832 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“All right. Sir!” said the old man; “and now, since you 
did not come here to speak of the wounded man at Pendleton’s, 
what is there I can do for you or for Mrs. Pendleton? ” 

“Why, Mr. Mallory,” said the provoking doctor, “you are 
as much in a hurry with your conclusions as your daughter ! I 
never said that I had not come here to speak of my patient at 
Deep Creek Cottage ! I only observed that I never told your 
daughter that such ivas the case.” 

“ Very true. Sir ! But we uneducated folks are not apt to 
speak with such attention to accuracy 1 ” said Mr. Jared Mal- 
lory, speaking with some impatience, and almost with a sneer, 
but with the manner and accent of the educated classes, to 
which he was asserting that he did not belong. “May I 
ask you then to state what is the purpose of your visit to 
Chewton ? ” 

“Well! my principal object in coming here, and that for 
which Mrs. Pendleton sent me here, was to see and speak with 
her husband.” 

“Well, Sir!” returned the old clerk; “since Mrs. Pendleton, 
who I suppose knows what she is about, has sent you here for 
the purpose, I think I can put you in the way of meeting with 
Hiram Pendleton ; but your ride at the moor is not yet quite 
at an end, if you wish to see him. He is not at Chewton ; nor 
within six miles of it.” 

“ And I confess to have ridden quite far enough already, con- 
sidering that I have to ride all the way back again,” said 
Dr. Blakistry. 

“ I am afraid that you are not likely to see the man you 
want, without adding another dozen miles or more to your ride. 
Sir,” said the old man, with a somewhat malicious appearance 
of satisfaction. 

“ And I am thinking,” said the doctor, »“ that perhaps I may 
be able to do my errand without seeing Mr. Pendleton. But 
if I am, as I fear, keeping you from your dinner, Mr. Mallory, 
I will go and have a look at the village ; and return when you 
have done.” 

“ Not at all. Sir ! By no means ! If you will only say at 

once or if,” he continued, partly in compliance with a 

look from his daughter, and partly struck by a sense of the 

discourtesy of his previous proceeding; “if the moor air 

has given you an appetite that can content itself with moor- 
land fare — a bit of bacon, and a cut from the loaf — perhaps 
you will honour us by sitting down with us, and we can talk 


^ LINDISFARN CHASE. 333 

of the matter you have in hand, whatever it is, over our 
dinner.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Mallory! I confess, that I do feel very 
particularly well inclined to eat a bit of bacon and a cut 
from the loaf ; and not a very small cut either I I shall be 
thankful for your hospitality, and we can talk the while, as 
you say.” 

An Englishman cannot be surly to a man sitting down at 
his table to share his meal with him. It is no more possible to 
him, than it is to an Arab to slay the traveller who has sought 
hospitality in his tent. And the party of four, consisting of 
old Mallory, his daughter, his grandson, and his visitor, had 
hardly broken bread around the same table, before the tone of 
the conversation between them had become less stiff and some- 
what more friendly. 

“ You said rightly enough, Mr. Mallory, that the moor air, 
and a ride through it, are capital specifics for creating an 
appetite. And that fine little fellow opposite seems to find the 
first quite enough for the purpose without adding the second. 
He was my first acquaintance in Chewton. I found him sitting 
at the churchyard gate speculating on the fried rashers, which 
he concluded were being prepared for him, from the smoke he 
saw curling up from your chimney. What a fine little fellow 
he is 1 ” 

“Ay, the child thrives !” replied the old grandfather, some- 
what drily, and with none of the satisfaction in his voice, which 
the remark would seem calculated to call for ; while the mother 
of the boy thus praised fixed her eyes on the plate before her, 
and remained silent. 

Ho one of these little indications was lost upon the doctor, 
who saw in them still further confirmation of the truth of his 
conjectures, and of the consequent salvation of his favourite 
theory. 

“ It is strange,” he continued, “ that the little fellow should 
bring us back again to the individual we have already so often 
spoken of, my patient at Deep Creek Cottage. But I can’t help 
being struck by a singular resemblance of feature between the 
two. I observed it the moment I saw the child. We physi- 
cians, you know, are apt to take notice of such things ; habitu- 
ated, as we are, to scrutinise faces and the expression of them 
closely.” 

A quick and significant glance passed between old Jared 
Mallory and his daughter, as Blakistry spoke thus j but it did 


834 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


not pass so quickly as to prevent him from catching it on its 
passage. 

“ Other people, I suppose, think less of such chance matters,’* 
replied the old man. “You were going to mention the object 
of your visit to Chewton. If I seem in a hurry to hear it, it is 
because I shall be obliged to go out again as soon as I have 
eaten my dinner.” 

“ My business was to find Pendleton, having been directed here 
by his wife for that purpose. But the truth is, that my object 
in seeing Pendleton was no other than to speak to him about 
this same patient of mine, the man lying ill at his cottage. 
And when I said that I began to think that I might obtain the 
information I wished without seeing him, it was because I 
fancied that I might learn here all I needed, — perhaps more 
satisfactorily than from him.” 

The same quick sharp glance, this time with a yet more 
marked expression of agitation in it, at least on the part of 
the daughter, passed between her and her father. 

“If you mean merely because of the chance likeness you 
fancied you saw between ” 

“ I have finished my dinner,” interrupted Bab, rising from 
her chair, as she spoke ; “ and as what you have to say to my 
father cannot be any business of mine. Sir, I will leave you to 
finish it with him, if you will kindly excuse me. Come July, 
I am sure you have eaten enough to last you till supper time,” 
she added, affecting to look towards the doctor with a smile, 
which he had no diflSculty in seeing was not the genuine ex- 
pression of the feeling that was in her mind. “I suppose. 
Father,” she added, as ;she turned towards the door of an 
inner room, “ that if Dr. Blakistry brings news that anything 
has happened or is likely to happen to the wounded man, it 
will be best to let Pendleton know of it at once.” 

The doctor perceived at once the anxiety that betrayed itself 
while striving to conceal itself under the appearance of indif- 
ference in these words ; and while noting the symptom, and 
adding it to his stock, hastened to relieve it. 

“ Oh no, nothing of the sort. He will do very well, with a 
little time and good nursing. It was an ugly cut enough, 
though. And if there had been another half pound of weight 

on the cutlass that gave it, why the result might have 

been different. As it is, I assure you, you have no cause for 
anxiety,” and the doctor looked keenly, but at the same time, 
kindly at her, as he uttered the words. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


335 


“Anxiety ! said Bab, with widely opened eyes, and a toss of 
her handsome head ; yet still, as it were, in despite of herself, 
lingering to hear what should come next. 

“ Yes, anxiety. It is very natural. And pray do not think 
me impertinent, my dear Madam, if I beg that you will remain 
and hear what I have to say. I think it may be interesting to 
you. And may I hope that you will consider me in the light 
of a friend in listening to me ? I come here only as such, as I 
went to see the sufferer at Deep Creek Cottage only as such. 
Doctors necessarily become often acquainted with the secrets of 
their patients. It is their duty, and, I think I may say their 
invariable practice, to respect them. May I then speak to you 
as a friend ? ” 

The appeal was evidently made to both the father and 
daughter. They looked at each other with glances of uneasi- 
ness, and mutual inquiry ; but for a minute or so neither spoke. 

“ If we are somewhat slow. Sir, to reply cordially to such an 
appeal,’’ said the old man at length, “ it is because it is a new 
and strange one to us. We have not been much accustomed 
to friends or friendship. We have met with but little of it 
from those we might perhaps have expected it from. That 
must be our excuse if we are somewhat slow to expect it from 
one who is a stranger, and on whom we certainly have no sort 
of claim.” 

“One does not always find friendly feeling most in this 
world, Mr. Mallory, as I should think your experience must 
have taught you, from those from whom it might most 
naturally be expected. As for myself, it is little indeed I have 
to offer, or rather nothing. Circumstances — mainly the one 
of my having been called to visit the wounded man at Deep 
Creek Cottage — have brought certain things to my knowledge ; 
and all I wish you to understand is, that my object is to use 
that knowledge in nowise to the annoyance or harm of you or 
yours, but, if the possibility should offer, to your advantage. 
And now I will be perfectly frank with you. I am well con- 
vinced that the wounded man whom I have attended is no other 
than that Julian Lindisfarn, the long-lost son of Dr. Theophilus 
Lindisfarn of the Close at Silverton. This was my conviction 
when I set out to come here, to speak to Mr. Pendleton about 
him ” 

“ Pendleton knows nothing about him, that is, as to who 

he is ! ” interrupted Bab hastily. 


336 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


“ In ascertaining that fact, I should not have communicated 
the information to him,” said the doctor. “ I have communi- 
cated my conviction to you, because I am entirely persuaded 
that you are also aware of the fact.” 

“ What can the man have said to lead you to imagine such a 
thing ? ” said Bab, still keeping up her fence, though evidently 
feeling herself not far off from the point at which she would 
be obliged to abandon it. 

“ Nothing ! I told you I would be quite frank with you. My 
patient has said nothing. But what are the circumstances ? I 
am called to this wounded smuggler by a young lady ; — rather 
a remarkable fact, as yourself observed. Now that young lady 
was Miss Kate Lindisfarn.” 

“ And did she tell you that the man she asked you to visit 
was her cousin ? ” again interrupted Bab, with a quickness and 
earnestness that once again betrayed to her shrewd companion 
her own knowledge of all the circumstances. 

“ By no means ! I am quite certain, and you may be quite 
certain, that Miss Lindisfarn would not betray any confidence 
that was placed in her.” 

“ Then what can have led you to ? ” 

“The same process which has convinced me perhaps it 

would be as well to send my little friend there out to his seat 
on the churchyard stile again,” said the doctor, interrupting 
himself. 

Poor Bab turned pale, and her breath came short ; and old 
Jared looked suspiciously and defiantly at his guest. But he 
said to his grandson sternly : 

“ Bun along out, child ! Go and play ! You are not wanted 

here! Now, Sir ! You were about to say ” he added, 

as he stepped across the wide stone floor of the kitchen, and 
closed the door of the house behind the child. 

“ I was about to say,” resumed the doctor quietly, “ that the 
same process of reasoning which had convinced me that my 
patient was, in fact, Julian Ijindisfarn — or mainly the same — 
had convinced me that the boy who has just left the room is 
his son.” 

“I do not understand very well. Sir, what you mean by 
what you call a process of reasoning, but ” 

“He is the son of Julian Lindisfarn,” interrupted Bab, draw- 
ing herself up to her full height and looking proudly and 
defiantly at the doctor ; “ and I am his mother.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


337 


“ I was sure of it from the jawbone ! said Blakisfcry tri- 
umphantly; “that is, sure of the paternity. The other cir- 
cumstances were deducible from circumstantial evidence.” 

“His jawbone ! ” exclaimed old Jared, frowning heavily. 
“The most unchangeable feature in all the face, my dear 

Sir! There are scientific reasons, which in one word, the 

wounded man is, to any eye capable of tracing a family like- 
ness, evidently a Lindisfarn. And the very handsome child 
who was here just now, is equally so ! These things cannot 
be hidden from the eye of science I ” 

“But it may be questionable. Sir, how far the tongue of 
science is justified in ” 

“ Nay, Father I If Dr. Blakistry means kindly and I 

am sure he does and if he has saved Julian’s life ” 

“ I do not say that I saved his life ! Maybe that I did ; for 
the cut was an ugly one ; and there was much fever ; and I 

cannot say quite between ourselves, you know — quite in 

confidence, Mr. Mallory — I cannot say that I have much confi- 
dence in the clinical practice of Dr. Bagstock. Still, I do not 
say that I saved his life.” 

“ At all events, he is saved ; and you have done your best 

towards it. It is the truth that ” 

“ Bab ! ” interrupted her father, very sharply. “ Stop a 
minute I I want to speak to you 1 ” 

So saying he drew her aside to a far corner of the large 
room ; and the father and daughter spoke a few sentences 
together in earnest whispers. Then turning again to Dr, 
Blakistry, she continued : 

“ It is the truth, as I was saying, that he now lying at Deep 
Creek Cottage is Julian Lindisfarn, and that the child is his 
son. But he is, for reasons which I need not trouble you with. 
Sir, extremely anxious that the fact of his being there should 
be known to no one, save to his two cousins, the young ladies 
at the Chase. His secret became known to Miss Kate, while 
she was at his bedside, having been brought there not jby any 
knowledge or suspicion of the fact, but only by her kindness 
for Mrs. Pendleton. And Miss Kate bargained for his per- 
mission to tell it to her sister. If those young ladies have 
kept their solemn promise, it is known to no one else. And 
all that I would ask of your kindness, Sir, is to reveal the 
truth which you have discovered to no one. Much trouble 
and sorrow would bo caused by doing so ; and no good to 
anyone.” 


22 


338 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


“ Yon have been aware, then, of all his doings ? ” remarked 
the doctor. 

“ Oh yes ! When Pendleton or any one of them are out 
here in the moor, there is no want of news. I knew all about 
it except the name of the kind doctor who had come at Miss 
Kate’s invitation to visit him.” 

“Well, you may depend on my faithful keeping of the secret 
which the laws of science have betrayed to me. Shall I 
mention to my patient that I have seen you here ? ” 

“ Perhaps best not ! ” said Bab, with a half-smothered sigh. 

“Certainly not,” added the old man, far more decidedly. 
“ We beg of you to say no word upon the subject of him or of 
us, to anyone, neither to himself, nor to the young ladies at the 
Chase — who, of course, know nothing of the facts which have 
been spoken of here, except that of their cousin’s existence, — 
nor to Mrs. Pendleton, nor to any other person whatever. It 

is the only kindness you can do us The only kindness, at 

least,” he added, in a more kindly tone and manner, “ besides 
that you have already done in caring for the safety of the father 
of my daughter’s child.” 

“ Be assured, my dear Sir, that I will not fail to obey you,” 
said the doctor, pressing the old man’s hand, and then taking 
that which Bab Mallory frankly extended to him. 

So the doctor rode back to Silverton in a happier frame of 
mind than that in which he had journeyed forth. Science had 
vindicated herself ; and the great theory was justified and con- 
firtned in the most notable manner. 

And then the doctor’s mind was at leisure to revert to the 
less exalted and merely social considerations involved in the 
circumstances of which he had become the depositary. He 
thought he remembered to have heard that the Lindisfarn pro- 
perty had been entailed on the male heir, who was supposed to 
have died in America. What a change would be made in a 
great many things by his reappearance ! And the two persons 
most concerned knew the facts ! And nobody else knew them, 
except the queer isolated people he had just left. A strange 
position of circumstances enough ! And would the two girls 
keep the secret ? Of his pet, Kate, he had no doubt. Of Miss 
Margaret he did not feel so sure. Well ! we shall see ! At all 
events, there was, thank heaven, nothing for him to do, save 
dimply to do nothing, but look on. 

So the doctor got home to his quiet comfortable little 
techelor’s dinner, in his quiet comfortable little bachelor’s house 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


339 


in Silverton, well contented with his day’s work ; some of the 
circumstances connected with which, were subjected to his 
speculations under a new light, and from a fresh point of 
view, when his housekeeper told him, as she waited on him 
at dinner, the news of the day in Silverton — that Mr. Frede- 
rick Falconer was engaged to be married to Miss Margaret 
Lindisfarn. 


CHAPTER XXXn, 

SETTLEMENTS. 

Dr. Blakistry religiously kept the promise he had given, 
despite the very strong temptation to break it, to which he was 
exposed by his longing desire to publish to the world, the 
remarkable confirmation afforded to his theory, by the circum- 
stances of the story which he had become acquainted with. 
He flattered himself at the time, when the gratification arising 
from the discovery was fresh in his mind, that the conscious- 
ness of this truimph of scientific truth under his auspices would 
abundantly suffice him. But the” longing shortly came upon 
him to enjoy his triumph in the eyes of others. He resisted 
gallantly, however ; and the possession of Julian’s secret con- 
tinued to be confined to Kate and her sister, the doctor, who 
was utterly unsuspected of sharing it by the two girls, and the 
little family out on the moor. 

He was not, however, forbidden to think on the strange cir- 
cumstances of the case ; and considering* them in connection 
with the tidings, now the property of all Silverton, of the 
engagement between the rich banker’s son and Miss Margaret 
Lindisfarn, his mind dwelt frequently on the great prudence 
and wisdom his friend and favourite Kate had shown in stipu- 
lating with her cousin that she should be allowed to communi- 
cate the secret at least to her sister. Had she not done so, — 
22—2 


340 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


had Miss Margaret been left under the false impression shared 
by all the rest of the Silverton world, that she and her sister 
were co-heiresses of the Lindisfarn property — she might have 
been led into forming an engagement, all the parties to which 
would have been under impressions most painfully different 
from the reality. As it was, concluded the Doctor, it was 
evident that Falconer had been made to understand in some 
way that, for some reason or other, his intended bride had no 
such expectations. And he freely gave that cynosure of Silver- 
tonian eyes credit for a greater degree of unworldliness and 
disinterestedness, than he had ever before been inclined to attri- 
bute to him ; and felt that he liked him better than he used 
to do. 

The necessary meeting between the Squire and old Mr. Fal- 
coner had passed off well and easily. The old banker had 
driven up to the Chase, and been closeted with the Squire in 
his study for a short half-hour ; and the two gentlemen had 
then come forth into the parlour where lunch was on the table, 
with faces which very plainly declared that no difficulties had 
arisen between them. 

“People think,’* the hearty old Squire had said to the 
cautious man of business who was eagerly marking every 
word that fell from him ; “ people think that my girls are 
co-heiresses of this property. But as far as I can understand 
the lawyers’ lingo, that is not the case.” 

“ I have always been perfectly well aware of that, Mr. 
Lindisfarn. People talk carelessly, without perhaps knowing 
the exact meaning of the terms they use,” said the banker. 

“ The state of the case, as I understand it, is this,” continued 
the Squire ; “ my hands are not tied in any way. It lies with 
me to bequeath the property as I may think fit.” 

“Nay, not quite so, Mr. Lindisfarn, if you will pardon me 
for correcting you on such a point,” said the banker, making 
his pig- tail vibrate with the intensity of his self-complacent 
courtly courtesy, as it used to do when he was engaged in 
the discussion of some point of antiquarian lore with Dr. 
Theophilus Lindisfarn ; and with a kind of cat-like purr in his 
voice which somehow or other, seemed to be used as a sort of 
wadding between his words to prevent them coming into hard 
contact with each other — “not exactly that, Mr. Lindisfarn. 
Your hands are not tied as regards the division of the property 
between your children. But I apprehend that you have not 
the power of willing any portion of it away from them.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


341 


Pshaw ! who the devil ever apprehended anything else ? 
The property belongs to the girls ; of course it does ; and of 
course it would, whether I had the power to leave it to the 
Lord Mayor or not. But it is in my power to divide it between 
them as I may think proper. Now you see, Mr. Falconer, if I 
settle one-half of the property on Margaret, I put this power 
out of my hands.” 

“Undoubtedly, Mr. Lindisfarn ; unquestionably you do. But, 
if you will forgive me for making the suggestion, one does not 

quite see how the young ladies can be well and and 

desirably, I will say, settled in the world, without such a sacri- 
fice of power on your part.” 

“ Why, a good settlement on either of the girls, or on both 
of them, might be made, you know, Mr. Falconer, so as still to 
leave a considerable portion of the property — say a third of 
it — unsettled, and still in my power, as far as bequeathing it to 
either child goes,” said Mr. Lindisfarn, speaking as if he were 
putting the idea before his own mind for consideration, rather 
than offering it as a suggestion to his companion. 

“ Such a course might certainly be adopted, Mr. Lindisfarn ; 
and it is not for me to make any remarks upon the wisdom or 
expediency of it,” said the old banker, with a certain dry stiff- 
ness in his manner, which had not before been apparent in it ; 
and the purr in which his words were packed, seemed to have 
more of the harsh quality of sawdust, and less of the softness 
of wadding in it ; for this suggestion on the Squire’s part was 
exactly what the banker had feared, and had considered as 
likely to operate to the advantage of Kate, and the disadvan- 
tage of Margaret ; “ such a course,” he continued, “ would have 
the effect of retaining a power or disposition in your own 
hands. But you must forgive me, my dear Sir, if I intimate 
that an intention on your part to approach the subject from 
such a point of view, would very essentially modify — neces- 
sarily so, as you will of course at once perceive — the views 
and intentions which I may be disposed to submit to you on my 
side.” 

And the old gentleman threw himself back in his chair, and 
began nursing the black-silk clothed calf of his right leg, 
looking keenly into the Squire’s broad and open face, to see 
the result of his shot. 

“ And what do I want with any such power, after all ? ” con- 
tinued the Squire, musingly, and replying very evidently more 
to the train of thought that had been going on in his own 


342 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


mind, than to the banker’s words ; “perhaps it is best to put 
it out of my hands. They are good girls and good daughters, 
both of them. I can’t say, when I look into my own heart, 
Falconer,” continued the old man, stretching his arm across 
the corner of the table at which they were sitting, and laying 
his broad hand on the superfine black cloth coat sleeve of his 
companion, I can’t say honestly that they are both quite the 
same to me there. It would not be natural or possible that it 

should be so. Kate but there, we all know what Kate is. 

But if my poor Margaret has been turned from an English girl 
into a French one, it was by no fault of her own. And if it is 
impossible for me to feel that she is as near to my heart as her 
sister, it would be unpardonable to make that a cause of still 
further disadvantage to her. And maybe it is all for the best 
to put the matter out of my own hands. No man can tell how 
great a fool he may grow as he gets older, eh,. Falconer ? Yes, 
the most right and righteous course will be to settle the pro- 
perty fairly between them. Yes, let it be settled on ’em both 
at once, one-half share for each.” 

Mr. Falconer executed a long series of little bows, as the 
Squire thus delivered himself, which imparted to his pig-tail 
and his chin an alternating up and down see-saw movement, 
expressive of the most decided approbation. 

“ I felt quite sure, my dear Mr. Lindisfarn, that your heart and 
head would both coincide in leading you to that determination, 
as soon as the matter was placed fairly before you. I have no 
such reflections to make. I have but one child. All that I 
have will be his ; nay, is his in point of fact. No father ever 
had a better son. He has never given me an hour’s anxiety 
since he was old enough to know right from wrong ! I have 
no long-descended acres to give him, Mr. Lindisfarn, you know 
that. You know who we are and what we are. Traders, 

Mr. Lindisfarn, mere traders somewhat warm ! I can leave 

my son a good name, Mr. Lindisfarn and something else 

besides.” And the banker performed a very elaborate and 
significant wink as he spoke the last words, “ something else 
besides.” “As regards settlements, you must of course be 
aware, my dear Sir, that it is not quite so simple a matter for a 
man in business to tie up capital, as it is for a landowner to tie 
up his acres. It will, of course, be proper that the young lady’s 
fortune should be strictly settled on herself ; and, therefore, 
there will be the less difficulty in meeting the necessary require- 
ments on our side. But all this will be matter for considera- 


LINDISI^EN CHASE. 


343 


tion and arrangement with your solicitors. All I wish is to 
act as liberally by my boy as it is possible for me to do ; and 
my full purpose and intention is, that he shall possess every 
farthing I have in the world. Can a father say more, Mr. Lindis- 
farn ? Can a father, who is a banker, speak fairer than that ? ” 

The Squire, thus appealed to, professed his inability to con- 
ceive any fairer speaking in a father and a banker ; and then 
the two old gentlemen had come out from their conference in 
the study, into the room where the ladies were at luncheon with 
Mr. Frederick. The ladies, that is to say Miss Immy — and 
Miss Margaret. For Kate, who had taken of late to pass 
much of her time up stairs, had again to-day excused herself 
from coming down to luncheon. 

“What ! Kate not here ? ” cried the Squire, as he entered ; 
and a passing cloud traversed his face. But his genial kindly 
good humour shone out again in the next instant, as, going to 
the back of Margaret’s chair, he pinched her cheek — much to 
the young lady’s annoyance, as he would have had no difficulty 
in perceiving, had he been in front of her instead of behind her 
— and said, — 

“We have been sitting in council upon your case, little lady; 
and, as far as I can see, we shall manage to find the means of 
paying the butcher’s and baker’s bills for the new nest, as 
far as breakfasts and dinners are concerned; I don’t know 
about luncheons — they are abominable things ! Don’t you 
think BO, Falconer ? I don’t think we will allow the young 
people any luncheon, eh ? You don’t do anything in this way, 
I’ll be bound!” 

“Well, sometimes just one glass of sherry: especially when 
the Lindisfarn sherry falls in my way, and more especially still, 
when I have the opportunity of drinking a glass with Miss 
Immy,” said the banker, filling a glass, and drawing a chair to 
the corner of the table by the side of Miss Immy. 

“Thank you, Mr. Falconer,” said that lady. “Your very 
good health ! And I drink,” she continued, raising her glass 
high in the air with a steady hand, though the brown top-knot 
of ribbons on her cap shook with the little palsied movement 
of her head which seemed to impart an expression of invincible 
determination to the sentiment she uttered, “ I drink particu- 
larly to the health and prosperity of Mr. Frederick Falconer 
and his bride.” 

And the old lady swallowed her glass of sherry with an air 
of sacramental solemnity. 


344 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


A glance of mutual intelligence passed between the two 
objects of her good wishes, which, while contributing to indi- 
cate their fitness for each other, did much to manifest their 
unfitness for communing with the genial honest hearts around 
them. 

“ Hang the old fool ! ’’ said the features of the gentleman, as 
plain as features could speak ; while the lady’s delicately 
flushed cheeks and more eloquent eyes managed to express 
the more complicated sentiment of her shame at being related 
to such old-world Vandals, and her conviction that she and 
her Frederick belonged to a far other and far superior 
“ monde^ 

It was necessary to say something, however, and the admi- 
rable Frederick managed to utter, “ Much obliged, Miss Immy 

really fiiHy sensible haw ! ” And then he felt 

that he had sacrificed himself to the extent -required by the 
occasion. 

“ Put out my arm further than I can draw it back again,” 
thought the young man to himself, “ I should think so indeed ! 
But there ! — I can see by the governor’s face that it is all 
right.” 

So the banker and his son drove home to Silverton together ; 
and their conversation by the way, was of a far more sensible 
nature than that which had passed between the Squire and his 
daughter. 

“ So that is settled, so far ! ” said the senior. You remem- 
ber what I told you, Fred, once before when we were driving 
over this same road together, that I thought Kate the better 
spec. Well ! I can tell you that the old Squire was monstrously 
inclined to fight shy of settling half the property on Margaret. 
If I had not been very firm with him ” 

“ But it is all right as it is, I suppose ! ” interrupted his son. 
“ Half the estates to be settled on Margaret on the day of her 
marriage ! That’s the ticket I go for ! As for Kate, I took 
the horse I was most safe to win with, as I told you. Sir, before. 
And besides ” 

“ Well ! It is all very well as it is ; very well ! I only 
hope that I may find old Slowcome as easy to deal with as the 
Squire about settlements,” added the banker, with an almost 
imperceptible sigh. 

The old established Sillshire firm of Slowcome and Sligo, 
were Mr. Lindisfarn’s solicitors. 

“ Why,” said Frederick, answering rather to the slight sigh, 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


845 


which had not escaped him, than to his father’s words, “is there 
any hitch ? ” 

“ No ! Hitch ? I hope not ! I am glad, very glad, on the 
whole, that you have brought the matter to bear without letting 

the grass grow under your feet. But in short, I need not 

tell you that in our business, what a man can do one day ho 
may be unable to do another. Circumstances change. Busi- 
ness is very uncertain ; — and in ours we are dependent on so 
many besides ourselves. A man may be struck down at any 
moment by no fault or imprudence of his own. I have had 
causes for much serious anxiety of late. Why should I trouble 
you with them ? I trust, I doubt not, all will go well. And I 
should have said no word of this kind to you to-day, had it not 
been that it is as well to tell you, that I shall be very glad to 
see you safely married to Miss Margaret Lindisfarn, with half 
the Lindisfarn acres duly settled on her, even if they are tied 
up as tight as old Slowcome can tie them.” 

There was much food for meditation for our friend Fred in 
this speech. He did not like it. He knew his father ; and the 
more he pondered over that knowledge in connection with the 
words the old banker had been speaking, the more he did not 
like it. Nevertheless, he thought it best not to push his father 
for any further explanation of words ; but he inwardly resolved 
to make that use of the hints thrown out to him which it 
was evidently intended he should make, — that is, to press 
his affairs with the heiress to as rapid a conclusion as might be 
possible. 

A cloud had passed over the jolly Squire’s genial face, it has 
been said, when on coming out from his study with the old 
banker, he found that his darling Kate was not in the parlour 
with the rest of the family party. On several occasions 
recently, little matters of the same sort had been unpleasant to 
the Squire. He was not one of those men who are quick to 
observe the actions of those around them, and to speculate on, 
and draw conclusions from them. But for some days past it 
had been gradually forcing itself upon his notice that, somehow 
or other, Kate was not like her usual self. Instead of being 
constantly seen about the house, and still more frequently heard, 
she was rarely seen, and hardly ever heard at all. The huge 
old staircase never echoed now to the carolling of her clear- 
cheery voice, as she tripped up it to her room, or came dancing 
down as of old. She frequently made the excuse of headache 
for remaining in her own room, always (only none but her 


846 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


sister had yet noticed the coincidence) when Falconer was there. 
Kate with a headache! And yet her looks gave abundant 
testimony to the genuineness of her excuses. 

At last it had entered into the head of the Squire that Kate’s 
evident low spirits and unhappiness must be connected with 
the fact of her sister’s engagement. And the suspicion that 
she herself was not indifferent to Falconer, came upon him 
.with a bitter pang. Could it be that her young heart had been 
won by a man, who, to her father’s thinking, was so every way 
not good enough for her ? He did not say to himself that 
though not fit to tie Kate’s shoe-string he was good enough for 
Margaret’s husband. But unconsciously this was his feeling 
on the subject. There seemed to be a fitness for each other 
between him and Margaret, which the Squire could feel, though 
he could not reason on the subject, sufficiently even to formu- 
late the persuasion into words said only to himself. And he 
had been content therefore to accept the Falconer overtures. 
But what misery was in store for them all, if it were really 
true that Kate were pining for her sister’s lover. 

Mr. Mat, to whom alone the Squire had dropped a word 
upon the subject, utterly and most vigorously scouted the 
possibility of such an idea. More likely Kate was vexed at 
seeing her sister throwing herself away on such a fellow. 
Maybe she was down in the mouth, and off her food a bit by 
reason of Lady Farnleigh’s prolonged absence. Kate had been 
used to be so constantly with her Ladyship all her life ; it was 
well-nigh missing her mother like ! Or might be, said Mr. 
Mat, it was nothing at all but just a little trifle wrong in 
health, as young girls would be, which would all come right 
again. But let it be what it might, it was not pining after 
Fred Falconer 1 What Kate ! he, he 1 Mr. Mat knew better 
than that. 

Meanwhile it was most true that Kate was very miserable. 
Upon that part of the varied causes for unhappiness that had 
fallen upon her which more immediately concerned herself, she 
strove to let her thoughts dwell as little ‘and as rarely as pos- 
sible. But we all know, alas 1 how vain such strivings are. 
And in Kate’s case, condemned as she was, to a degree of soli- 
tude to which she was quite unaccustomed, by the other 
untoward circumstances of her present position, it was less 
possible than it might otherwise have been to warn the 
thoughts from off the prohibited ground. The progress of her 
sister’s affairs was a constant subject of uneasiness and alarm 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


347 


to her. And the doubts and difficulties she felt as to her own 
con duct, and the consciousness that, while action of any kind 
was impossible to her, even the inaction to which she con- 
demned herself was likely to give rise to ideas and interpreta- 
tions which it was agony to her to think of, made those weeks 
a time of great and severe trial to her. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Blakistry was assiduously doing his best for 
the recovery of his patient at Deep Creek Cottage ; and his 
efforts were well seconded by the youth and constitution of the 
wounded man. He was, in fact, progressing rapidly towards 
recovery. Dr. Blakistry kept Kate well-informed as to the 
progress of the patient “ in whom,” as the Doctor said, “ she 
had taken so kind an interest.” But of course no word was 
said between them as to the secret which both of them knew, 
and which one of the two knew to be shared by the other. 
Nor did Kate see her cousin a second time. No good could 
have been done by any such visit, and assuredly nothing agree- 
able could have been hoped for from it. 

About three weeks after the date of Mrs. Pendleton’s memo- 
rable visit to Kate on the night of the great storm — the night 
before the affair with the Saucy Sally and the Coastguardmen 
— Mrs. Pendleton again walked up to the Chase. She brought 
Kate news of the very satisfactory improvement in the con- 
dition of her wounded guest. Dr. Blakistry declared that in a 
few days he would be able to leave his room. Mrs. Pendleton 
also handed to Kate a sealed note — of thanks for the kind and 
charitable attention she had shown to an unfortunate stranger, 
the good woman said — which her guest had requested her to 
put into Miss Kate’s own hands. 

“ It is something more important than that,” said Kate, 
when she had read the short note, and tossed it into the fire of 
the housekeeper’s room, in which, as on that other occasion, she 
received her old nurse’s visit. “ It is to request me to send 
back by you a small packet, which he begged me to keep for 
him, when he was persuaded that he was going to die. I will 
go and get it.” 

So she went up stairs to her room, took the little packet from 
her desk, and putting it into a sealed, but unaddressed envelope, 
delivered it to Mrs. Pendleton. 

And within a week from that time — about a month, that is, 
after he was wounded, a second visit from Mrs. Pendleton 
brought Kate the information that the stranger had at last 
been pronounced by Dr. Blakistry able to travel, and that he 


848 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


had sailed for the opposite coast in the Saucy Solly the night 
before. 

Mr. Pendleton was a very good husband, as has been said, 
smuggler though he was ; and had no secrets from his wife 
which it would have much imported to that excellent woman 
to hear. But he did not think it necessary to overtask female 
discretion, and torment female curiosity, by troubling her with 
matters which in no wise concerned her. Thus there had been 
no reason at all that he should tell her the altogether unin- 
teresting fact, that the Saucy Sally conveyed on that same night 
another, nay, two other passengers, to the coast of France. 
When she slipped away from Sillmouth in the first dark hours 
of a moonless night, she had none on board, save the same 
crew, with which she had made her last dangerous voyage. 
But she did not stand out at once across the channel, as would 
have been her natural course. On the contrary, Hiram, who 
stood at the wheel himself, and seemed as able to feel or smell 
his way in the dark, as he could have seen it, if it had been 
broad daylight, kept her close in along the coast to the west- 
ward, till he was just off a little bit of a creek formed by a 
small stream which came down from the neighbouring moor. 
Having reached that point, he showed a green light for an 
instant. It was absolutely a merely momentary flash. But it 
sufficed for its purpose. For in a very few minutes, the anxious 
crew of the Saucy Sally could hear the low sound of muffled 
oars, and in the next, a small boat pulled along side of them, 
as they lay to, in which there were four persons ; a woman, a 
child, a tall old man, and a man who had the appearance of a 
common sailor. 

The French stranger, who had just recovered from his hurts, 
stood by the bulwark of the Saucy Sally ^ aud tenderly assisted 
and received the woman as she clambered from the boat up the 
lugger’s side. Then he took the boy from the hands of the 
tall old man in the boat, and holding the child in his arms, 
darted down with him into the not very brilliantly lighted little 
cabin of the smuggler. 

The lugger shook out its sails ; and the tall old man in the 
boat, having regained the lonely beach of that little-frequented 
moorland shore, 

“Walked grieving by the margin of the much-voiced sea” 
as long as he could descry the outline of the receding vessel in 
the darkness ; and then returned to a not less lonely home at 
Chewton, a few miles inland. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


349 


CHAPTER XXXm. 

PATERNAL ADVICE. 

When the news of her cousin’s final recovery from his 
wounds and departure for France reached Kate, her sister was 
not with her at the Chase. Sbe had been much at her 
uncle’s house in the Close lately ; an arrangement which had 
been highly agreeable to all the parties chiefly concerned. It 
had been a great relief to Kate under the circumstances, that 
the scene of the love-making between her sister and Falconer 
should be transferred from her own home to the house in the 
Close at Silverton. Margaret was always better pleased to 
be in Silverton than at home, where, little as there was to 
amuse her at her uncle’s, the surroundings were still less con- 
genial to her. And now, of course, more than ever, it was 
agreeable to her to be in the near neighbourhood of her beloved 
Frederick. 

To that ‘preux c/iemZiier himself, it was far more convenient 
to have his work close at hand. He found it easier to do it, 
too, amid the gentle dulness of the good Canon’s house, and 
under the protecting wing of the feebly sympathetic, though 
profoundly dispirited. Lady Sempronia, than amid the rougher, 
more observant, and less congenial inmates of the Chase. 
Frederick engaged in making love within possible ear-shot or 
eye- shot of Mr. Mat, always felt as if he were there with a 
view to stealing the silver spoons. Kate’s palpable avoidance 
was an annoyance to him. Miss Immy’s old-fashioned com- 
pliments and courtesies and very effete little waggeries bored 
and irritated him. And even the jolly old Squire’s loud and 
hearty words of greeting, or of jest, were very distasteful to 
him. In every respect it was far better that his charmer 
should be in Silverton. It gave him so many more and easier 
opportunities of acting in obedience to his father’s hint to the 
effect that he would do well not to let the grass grow under 
his feet. 


• 350 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


The old banker had repeated similar words of advice on one 
or two occasions, coupling them with hints of a kind which 
made Fred very seriously uneasy. He could not avoid seeing, 
too, that his father himself, though striving hard to keep his 
usual countenance and manner, was harassed by some cause of 
anxiety and trouble. 

We know how excellent a son Frederick had always shown 
himself ! And in the present circumstances, as always, he did 
his utmost to comply with his father’s wishes. Again and 
again as they walked together in the friendly shade of the trees 
under the old city wall in the Canon’s garden — the scene of 
Frederick’s offer and of his Marguerite’s acceptance of his 
love — he implored her to fix the day, and to use her influence 
to abbreviate the cruelly long delays and procrastination of 
Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo. And Margaret, if it had been in 
any wise proper, permissible, or possible, would have replied 
that he could not be in a greater hurry than she was. In fact, 
the words of Dr. Blakistry’s opinion that her cousin would be 
well in a month, were always sounding like a warning knell in 
her ears. As soon as her cousin should have recovered, he 
would go away ; the time for which Kate was bound by her 
promise of secresy would have expired, and then 

But Margaret, of course, was far too well bred, and knew 
her business far too thoroughly to allow herself to be hurried 
by this urgent motive into any unbecomingly easy accordance 
of her lover’s prayer. Nevertheless she allowed an admissible 
amount of sympathy and pity for his impatience to appear. 
It was with the prettiest play of coyness, and amid blushes and 
drooping of the eyelashes, that she admitted the detestability 
of Messrs. Slowcome, pere et fils, and of Mr. Sligo, and the 
intolerableness of their delays. 

At length, one day — it was towards the close of business 
hours in the Silverton bank — Mr. Falconer sent to ask his son 
to step into his private sanctum. Frederick met Mr. Fish- 
bourne, looking, he observed, very grave, passing out from con- 
ference with his chief, as he went in. 

“Well, Fred,” said his father, as he entered, evidently 
striving to brighten up a little, and to speak as cheerfully as 
he could, “I sent for you to ask how afiairs are getting on 
between you and Margaret. You have had her all to yourself 
for some days past, down in the Close here.” 

“ And I flatter myself I have not neglected my opportunities. 
Sir,” replied Frederick, speaking in the same tone. In fact,” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


351 


he added, a little more seriously, “ I have nothing to complain 
of, and in truth I believe I might have it pretty well all my 
own way, were it not for that horridly slow coachj old Slow- 
come. It is to Slowcome and Sligo, Sir, that you should 
address yourself rather than to me, with a view to doing any- 
thing towards hastening the match.’’ 

“ Hasten old Slowcome ! Humph ! If the end of the world 
•was fixed for twelve o’clock this day week punctually, do you 
think Slowcome would move one jot the faster, or omit a single 
repetition of ‘ executors,’ and ‘ administrators ’ from his ‘ draft 
for counsel ? ’ Not he. Now look here, my dear boy. I am 
sure you have the good sense to make the best use of any hint 
I may be able to give you for your guidance, without seeking to 
ask questions concerning matters which it is better not to 
trouble you with ” 

“ Good heavens, father ! ” 

“ Gently, my dear boy, gently ! do not agitate yourself. I 
trust there is no occasion for you to feel any agitation. I hope 
— I have every hope that all will go well. But there are cir- 
cumstances that make me think it my duty to tell you, that if 
your marriage with Miss Lindisfarn could be hastened, it would 
be ahem prudent to do it ! ” 

“I’ve told you, Sir, that we are only waiting for these 
troublesome settlements. Once for all, I believe, that as soon 
as the papers are signed I may name the day as soon as I 
like.” 

“ But as far as I see,’ it may be a month or more, before 
that will be done ! ” said the old man, fidgeting uneasily in his 
chair. 

“ I have no doubt it will ! ” returned his son ; “ but what in 
the world can I do to hurry the old fellow ? ” 

“ Nothing ; nothing would hurry him ! But sometimes,” 
and the old man looked furtively up into his son’s face as the 
latter stood lounging with his arms crossed on the highback of 
the writing-table at which his father was sitting, “ in the days 
when I was young, an impatient and ardent lover was not 
always content to wait for the tedious formalities of the 
lawyers.” 

“ What marry without any settlements at all ! ” exclaimed 
the “ ardent lover,” staring at his father in open-eyed astonish- 
ment, as if he suspected that he was losing his senses. 

“ Pooh, pooh, without settlements at all ! Who spoke 
of marrying without settlements ? In such a case as yours 


352 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


it would of course be all ibe same thing if the deeds were 
signed before or after ! The substance of them has been all 
agreed to,” 

“ But would the old people at the Chase consent ? ” said 
Frederick, doubtfully. 

“ Pshaw ! consent ! Why Fred, one would think you had 
the blood of seventy-seven in your veins instead of that belong- 
ing to twenty-seven ! Of course the old folks would not con- 
sent. Of course I should not consent ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! We 
did not always ask the consent of Papa and Mamma in my 
day.” 

Frederick, looking down on his father from the other side of 
the high-backed writing-table, keenly and observantly, as he 
spoke the above words, did not seem to be at all stirred up by 
them to any of that hot-headed ardour, which the old gentle- 
man appeared to think would become his years. He grew, on 
the contrary, graver in manner, and felt very uneasy. 

“ But suppose. Sir,” he answered, watching his father narrowly 
as he spoke ; “ suppose my natural impatience prompted me to 
take such a step as you hint at, is it likely that Margaret 
would consent to it ? ” 

“ Hay ! that is your affair ; altogether your affair, my dear 
boy. I suppose no girl ever consented to such a step unless 

she were pretty vigorously pressed to do so, but very many 

have consented.” 

“Margaret has an uncommonly shrewd head of her own ; 
she has abundance of sound common sense ! ” said Fred 
musingly, and speaking more to himself than to his father. 

“ I am sure she has ! Without it she would not have been 
the girl for you, Fred. But what would you have ? Girls are 
romantic — a thing represented to them in a poetical point of 
view, you know! ” 

“ But again. Father, supposing that I could induce Margaret 
to consent to such a step, would it be, looking at it from our 
point of view, a safe one ? ” 

“ I do not think there would be much danger,” replied his 
father, speaking in a decided and business-like tone, very dif- 
ferent from that in which he had been hitherto talking’. “ I 
am very much convinced,” he continued, “that there would be 
no danger at all. The old Squire, even if he has ever had a 
thought of anything else than dividing the property equally 
between the two girls, would never budge from his word given 
to me. Trust me, the old Squire’s word is as good as any 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


353 


settlement old Slowcome can make, any day. Certainly, I do 
not mean to say,” continued the old banker, “ that the step in 
question would be one which I should counsel under ordinary 
circumstances. There would be, no doubt, a certain possibility 
of risk ; and it is always unwise to run any risk, if it can be 
avoided. But I have already told you, my dear Fred, that 

there are reasons there are reasons. Very possibly, in all 

probability, there may be nothing* in them but if you 

can steal a march on old Slowcome, and do the job, at once 

why I should advise you to do it. We old birds should be 

very angry, of course,” added the old gentleman, with an 
attempt at a smile, which the evident anxiety in his face 
rendered a sorry failure, ‘‘bat we should be very forgiving.” 

“Well, Sir, as you tell me I had better not, I will not attempt 
to question you; and I will think very seriously of all you have 
said, and be guided by it, as far as is practicable.” 

“ And look here, Fred,” said his father, opening the drawer 
of his writing-table, and taking from it an unsealed envelope, 
“ I have not calculated at all accurately the cost of posting from 
here to Gretna. It is a long journey ; but I think that there is 
enough there to do it, if you should happen to need such a 
thing. Four horses make the guineas as well as the milestones 
fly. But there would not be much chance of your being pur- 
sued. There would only be a bit of a lecture, and a blessing, 
and a laugh against Slowcome, when you came back all tied as 
fast as Vulcan could tie you.” 

“Thank you. Sir,” said Fred, pocketing the bank-notes. 
“ Depend upon it I will put your advice to the best profit I 
can.” 

So the younger man went out, very far from easy in his mind, 
leaving the senior with his hands deeply plunged in his pockets, 
and his head fallen forward on his breast, in deep and anxious 
thought. 

In truth, he had but too much reason for anxiety. A most 
unlucky combination of unfortunate circumstances falling to- 
gether had, in fact, placed the bank in very critical circum- 
stances. And it was quite a touch-and-go matter with the old 
established firm to get on from day to day without a catas- 
trophe. Mr. Fishbourne said (to his partner only) that it was 
quite providential that they had succeeded in weathering the 
storm as long as they had. But he did not appear to have any 
comfortable reliance on the stability of the intention of Provi- 
dence with regard to the old Silverton bank. 

23 


354 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


Frederick’s favourite time for paying his visits to the house 
in the Close was the hour of the afternoon service in the 
Cathedral. The spring had not yet ripened into summer, but 
the season was sufficiently advanced to render the sheltered 
walk -in the Canon’s garden at that quiet hour extremely 
pleasant. The Doctor was sure to be absent at the Cathedral. 
Lady Sempronia, if she went out at all, did so at that time. 
If, as was more frequently the case, she did not go out, she 
was reposing on the sofa, in the cheerless drawing-room, 
after the wearing fatigue of doing nothing all day, and recruit- 
ing her strength for that great hour of trial and effort — the 
dinner hour. 

Frederick was as that time safe therefore to find his Margaret 
at liberty to give herself up entirely to him; and the gathering 
gloom of evening only served to make the shaded terrace walk 
under the old wall, all the more delightful. 

It was just about the usual hour of his visit when he parted 
from his father in the bank parlour ; and he walked straight 
across the Close to the Senior Canon’s house, bent on at once 
feeling his way towards the execution of the project his father 
had shadowed forth to him. It was not that he went to the work 
with a very light heart, or a very good will. But he was pro- 
foundly impressed with the conviction that his father would not 
have spoken in the manner he had, if there had not been very 
grave reasons for doing so. And with regard to the prudence 
of the step, as far as concerned Miss Margaret’s fortune, he 
quite agreed with his father in feeling that the old Squire’s 
word upon the subject was as safe as any bond. 

So he knocked at the door, and asked the servant, who had 
long since come to understand that the gentleman had the right 
to make such an inquiry, if Miss Margaret was in the garden. 

“Yes, Sir ! you will find her on the terrace, I have no 
doubt,” said the old man, whose time for translation to a 
vergership had almost come, smiling knowingly at the visitor. 

“ Then, if you will let me out. Parsons, I will go into the 
garden through the study, so as not to disturb Lady Sempronia, 
if she is at home.” 

So Falconer passed into the quiet garden, and found Mar- 
garet on the terrace walk as usual. She was at the further 
end of it when he came withix^ight of her, and was reading a 
note, or paper of some sort, which she thrust away immedi- 
ately on catching sight of him. 

It was natural enough that she should put away anything 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


355 


that she was reading when she came forward to meet him. 
Nevertheless, there waiS a something about the manner of the 
action that caused her fond Fred to take observant note of it. 
Perhaps it was in the nature of the intercourse between these 
two young hearts, so specially fitted for each other, as the old 
Squire had observed, that every smallest movement or indication 
which escaped either of them should be, with the unfailing 
quickness of instinct, seized on, examined, noted and interpreted 
by the other ! 

The simple fact as to the paper which Margaret, with such 
conscious but unnecessary haste, concealed at the approach of 
her lover, is that it was a note from Kate, which had been 
given to her about a quarter of an hour previously, communi- 
cating to her the tidings the former had received from Mrs. 
Pendleton, of the convalescence and recovery of her inmate. 

Of course Margaret had been for some days past prepared 
for this event, and aware that it would not be deferred much 
longer. Nevertheless, it gave her a shock to learn that the 
dreaded moment had absolutely arrived. Would Kate reveal 
the facts immediately, now that she was free to do so ? That 
was the question ! Kate urgently desired her sister, in the 
note, to return at once to the Chase, that they might talk the 
matter over together. And Margaret considered that this was 
a favourable sign. If Kate intended to tell at all hazards, she 
would rather have done so, thought Margaret, making the error 
that all such Margarets make in speculating on the conduct of 
such Kates, without saying anything about it to her. 

At all events Margaret determined to obey her sister’s sum- 
motis, and go up to the Chase the next morning. She had 
sent back an answer by young Dick Wyvill, who had brought 
in Kate’s note on the pony of all work, to the effect that she 
would be ready immediately after breakfast, if Kate could pre- 
vail on Mr. Mat to come in for her in the gig. If not, the 
carriage must be sent. 

She had sent this reply, and was conning over again Kate’s 
note, to see if she could extract from it any evidence of the 
writer’s mood of mind respecting the all-important question, 
when she saw her lover emerging from the thick clump of 
Portugal laurels which filled the corner of the garden at the 
end of the terrace nearest to the house, and hastened forward 
to meet him. 

END OF PART XI. 

23—8 


856 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


fart mtimj. 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. 

Frederick advanced along* the terrace under the city wall to 
meet his lady love, with the slow step and downcast mien of a 
man thoroughly despondent and broken. Margaret, her hands 
extended a little in front of her, as in eager welcome, and her 
face bent forward, came towards him with a quick step, which 
broke into a little run as she neared him, very prettily eloquent 
of her impatience to meet him. 

The lady was the first to speak. 

“ Frederick, dear ! you seem as if you were not glad to see 

me ! And I how I have counted the hours till that came, 

which I might hope would bring you to me ! What is it ? Is 
anything the matter ? ” 

“Anything the matter ! ” re-echoed Fred, in a tone of profound 
discouragement, taking her two hands in his, and holding her 
by them at arms’ length from him, while he looked into her 
face with an expression of the intensest pathos and misery ; 
“ Anything the matter ! Ah, Margaret ! But I suppose girls 
do not feel as men do in these cases, and that it is therefore 
impossible for you to sympathize with my horrible torture.” 

“ Gracious heaven, Frederick ! Horrible torture ! What is 
it ? For God’s sake have no secrets from me. Tell me what 
is the matter ! ” 

The words and the form of speech, and the manner of 
speaking them, as far as the by no means inconsiderable talents 
of the speaker could accomplish it, expressed extreme anxiety 
and agitation. But I do not think that the lovely white 
bosom, from which they came, caused the Honiton lace which 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 357 

veiled it to flutter witli one jot quicker a motion, tkan it had 
done before. 

“ The matter, Margaret ! returned Fred, in a tone of worn- 
out listless despondency ; “ the matter is no more than you know 
— the old story — more delays ! no prospect of the end of them, 
that I can see ! Oh, Margaret, my heart wearies so for the 

hour when I can call you mine ! I am sick sick with the 

heartsickness that comes of hope long deferred. But you 

weeks or months are all the same to you. You can wait 
patiently ; you have no sympathy with my horrible impatience. 
Ah, Margaret, you do not love me as I love you. It would be 
impossible, if you did, to endure these never ending, still begin- 
ning delays so tranquilly.’^ 

“ My Frederick, you are unjust to me 1 Do you not know 
that your wishes are my wishes ? Do you not know that I 
would fain do your pleasure in all things ? Do not suppose 
that all this delay is otherwise than odious to me also ; odious 
to me because I know that it vexes you, my own love ! ” And 
the beautiful, dangerous creature looked into his eyes, as she 
spoke, with a brimming fulness of sympathy and fondness, that 
might have melted a heart of adamant. 

“ Dearest ! ” said he, passing from the position in which he 
had hitherto stood at arms’ length in front of her, to her side, 
while he twined her arm under his, and took the hand belong- 
ing to it between both of his hands ; “ My own Marguerite ! 
forgive me, if all I sufier makes me peevish and unjust. But 
it is too bad. There is no end to it. That old beast, Slowcome, 
has no more feeling than his own great ruler, which I should 
like to break over his stupid old bald pate ! ” 

“Is there anything new — any new cause of delay, I mean ? ” 
asked Margaret with really unaffected interest. For time was 
most important to her too. Heaven only could know how impor- 
tant it might be ! Here was Julian safe away out of England. 
Kate free to tell the horrid, horrid truth, that would ruin 
everything and drive her Frederick from her side, as if she had 
the pestilence, at any moment. Who could tell when the 
thunderbolt might fall, or how much time was yet left her to 
shelter herself in the haven of matrimony, before the flood 
should come and devour her, and suck her with its hideous 
under-draft away from that safe harbour for ever ? Yes, time 
was fully as important to Margaret as it was to her fond 
Frederick. If he could have known the sincerity of alarm 
with which she asked if there were any new cause of delay, he 


358 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


would not have accused her, assuredly, of lack of sympathy 
with him. 

“ I do not know. How should I know ? I do not understand 
their abominable nonsense ; it seems to me that that brute 
Slowcome takes a pleasure in making it all as longsome as 
possible. I see no prospect of any end.’’ 

“ But is there any new cause of delay, Frederick — anything 
that they did not know before ? ” asked Margaret, with real 
interest. 

“ Ho, nothing new, that I am aware of. How should there 
be? It is all perfectly clear and thoroughly known to all 
parties concerned. Your father gives you half the Lindisfarn 
property. My father gives me all he has in the world. The 
matter is clear enough, I think. As if that could not be 
written down, and signed, and sworn to, if they think it 
necessary, in half an hour, without writing heaven only knows 
how many skins of parchment about it ! And all to prevent 
you or me from cheating each other, my Marguerite. Is it not 
absurd ? Is it not too bad, that we should have to weary and 
pine our hearts out, for such impossible trash ? It is monstrous 
positively monstrous 1 ” 

“ It is indeed, dearest. But surely a great deal might be 
written in a whole day, even of those horrid parchments, if 
they would only be industrious about it? When does Mr, 
Slowcome think it will be done ? ” asked Margaret, with the 
prettiest childlike innocence. 

‘‘ I am sure I don’t know ! There is no getting anything out 
of him — the old wretch. He rubs his hands together, and 
twists his watchchain, and seems as pleased as possible, when 
he tells me that, ‘Every expedition shall be used, Mr. Frederick, 
that IS consistent with the care and scrupulous attention which 
it is my duty to pay to the interests of my clients, Mr. Frederick. 

Draft settlement for counsel has been proposed counsel 

must have tinae ’ Ugh ! I could strangle the brute as he 

stands before me. Hothing on earth can make him even speak 
any quicker than his usual little self-satisfied quaver, with a 
ha-harhum between every two words ! ” 

“It is very vexatious,” murmured Margaret, with gentle 
sympathy. 

“ Oh, vexatious ! It is hopeless ! I see no end to it. I 
declare I believe in my heart that old Slowcome knows that it 
will be another month before the deeds are ready. And all for 
such nonsense too ! If it were really necessary really 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


359 


something conducive to the happiness or welfare of my darling, 

I would wait I would be patient. But that one’s days 

which might be days of unspeakable happiness, should he 
turned into days of weary, wearing suffering, and all for 
nothing it is too bad !” 

‘‘I suppose that others have had to suffer from the same 
annoyances. I suppose that these vexations are unavoidable,” 
said Margaret, in a voice that seemed meant to counsel resig- 
nation. 

“ I daresay that there may be other Slowcomes in the world ; 
and I suppose that in some cases it may be necessary to wait 
for the completion of their work. But the heart-break of the 
thing is, that in our case, it is all w^necessary, that we are 
condemned to this horrible delay for the sake of mere compliance 

with a matter of routine; and that, too, to please a stupid 

old lawyer, who of course sees his interest in considering and 

representing such' ceremonies as absolutely indispensable ; 

all to satisfy Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo.” 

“ It is very hard,” murmured Margaret, administering at the 
same time a little pressure of her fair fingers against the palm 
that held them. 

“ When we know, too, that it is only for the lawyers ; that 
neither your father or mine would either of them dream of 
distrusting the other, or fancying it necessary to wait for the 
signature of papers ! ” 

“ Are these bothersome papers ahuays signed before the mar- 
riage ? ” said Margaret, in a very low voice, scarcely above her 
breath, while she again very slightly pressed his hand with 
her’s. 

“ I don’t know ; I should think not ! Why it is just like the 
huckster, who will not let his goods go out of his hand till the 
money has been paid over the counter — it is disgusting ! ” 

“ I am sure that there can be no shadow of such feeling either 
in your father or in mine ! ” said Margaret. 

“ Of course not ! That is what I say. It is so very hard, 
so intolerable to be sacrificed to the absurdities and mere blind 
routine of such an animal as old Slowcome. If I thought for 
an instant that it was a matter which your dear good father 
would care about, I should be for submitting with the best 
grace we could.” 

‘‘ Should bo for submitting, Frederick — why what else can 
we do, alas ! What possible alternative is open to us, savo 
submitting with, as you say, the best grace wo may ? ” 


360 


LINDlgFARN CHx\SE. 


“ There is an alternative, Margaret ! ” 

“ What do yon mean, Frederick ? 

An alternative, which many a loving couple, who yet have 
loved less truly, less madly than I love you, have had recourse 
to/’ 

“ For Heaven’s sake explain yourself ; and do not, ah, do not 
speak of your love for me, as if it were greater than mine for 
you. It is not so, Frederick.” 

“ The explanation is a very simple one, Margaret ! It is 
simply to laugh at the lawyers ; and leave them to finish their 
slow work at their own slow pace, and at their leisure.” 

“ How do you mean, dearest ? ” said Margaret, with a per- 
fection of ingemdtSj which completely imposed upon her adorer. 
For now that she was quite sure that Fred was on the road 
that suited her own views, it was not only needless to lend him 
any further helping or guiding hand, but was in every way 
best that she should make a little difficulty in yielding to the 
proposal which, to her great delight and no small surprise, she 
saw plainly enough was coming. 

“ I mean, dearest and best,” said Frederick, passing his arm 
round her waist, and drawing her gently to his side, a move- 
ment which, under the circumstances of the case, she did not 
think it necessary to resist entirely, contenting herself with 
drawing back a little from him, and gazing wistfully and with 
earnest enquiring eyes into his face the while, as if wholly 
engrossed by her interest in the reply he was about to make 
to her, “ I mean, dearest, that after all it is nothing but our 
own will that makes us wait the convenience of Slowcome, 
Sligo, and Co. ; that if we two will it so, there is nothing 
on earth that can prevent our becoming man and wife with- 
out asking their permission, and leaving them, as I said, to 
finish their papers and their signing and sealing at their 
leisure.” 

“ Oh, Frederick ! ” cried Margaret, looking at him with 
admirably counterfeited dismay ; “ how can that be ? Are 
not the papers, which those vexatious lawyers are so long 
about, necessary to the performance of a marriage? Can a 
marriage be made without them ? ” 

“ Why you dear, innocent little simpleton,” said Frederick, 
with that manifestation of superiority, which even if manifested 
in a more accurate knowledge of the amount of population at 
Pekin, is so delightful to some men ; “ do you suppose that 
Slowcome and Sligo, or any of their compeers, are called 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


361 


on to assist in all the marriages that are made ? Do you 
suppose that Dick ploughboy and Jenny dairymaid trouble 
the lawyers to draw their settlements before they are made 
man and wife? And yet, Margaret,” continued her mentor, 
assuming a graver tone of pious-sounding unction, “they are 
married in the sight of God, and of His Church, and of the 
law of the land, as holily and as irrevocably as any lord or 
lady in it.” 

“ And is that really so ? ” returned his pretty pupil, looking 
up at him with a beautiful commingling of interest and ad- 
miration. The Archbishop of Canterbury was not more 
completely aware of the self-evident nature of the truths 
her lover was laying down thus authoritatively, than was Miss 
Margaret Lindisfarn. But the air of nascent conviction was 
perfect with which she added : “ And yet it must be so ; of 
course it must. All the poor people cannot have lawyers 
bothering for months about them.” 

“ Of course not. I have told you already, these accursed 
settlements are precautions to prevent me and my father from 
cheating you and your father, and to prevent you and your 
father from cheating me and mine ! It is humiliating to think 
of it. That is the meaning of them. It is very proper, you 
will understand, my love, that these settlements should be 
made, because men and women are mortal ; our parents must 
die ; we ourselves shall die ; things must be recorded ; and 
the interests of those who come after us — (lady’s eyes cast 
down to the ground here, with an inimitable movement of the 
head, that was in itself a perfect study ;) — must be arranged, 
cared for, and protected. It is perfectly right and necessary 
that these settlements should be made, but there can be no 
necessity of waiting for them, unless either of us distrust the 
other. Can you trust me, my Margaret ? ” 

“ Frederick ! can you ask such a question ? ” said, or almost 
sobbed, Margaret, with a gush of emotion, that would almost 
have carried away old Slowcome himself in its impetuous rush 
of candour ; “ Trust you. Great Heaven ! Have I not trusted 
you ? Have I not trusted you with more and better, I would 
fain hopev than money or acres? I have trusted my heart 
to your keeping, Frederick ; I think I may trust the rest ? 
Trust you? Ah, Frederick, can there be love, where there 
is not perfect trust? ” 

And she clasped her two exquisitely gloved little hands 
together as she spoke, and raised them and her large dark 


362 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


liquid eyes towards tlie sky, while the admirably fitting silk, 
tight drawn over the well-developed bosom, and the delicate 
lace that filled the middle space between the two sides of her 
dress, rose and fell with the panting violence of her emotion. 
The figure, the expression, the action was perfect, and very 
beautiful. The play was almost too good for the occasion ; 
it was almost too good for the inferior player who had 
to play up to her. It was impossible for him not to be 
moved by the physical beauty of the face and figure before 
him. But the perfect vraisemblance and strength of the 
moral emotion rather startled and frightened him. He felt 
somewhat as a mere park rider, who expects his horse to 
go through the expected manege of curvetting and dancing, 
might feel if the graceful creature were all of a sudden to 
take to rearing in violent and veritable earnest. He began to 
doubt whether there might not possibly be some difficulty in 
keeping his seat under all circumstances and contingencies. 
He pulled himself, however, as well as he could, up to the 
moral elevation demanded by the nature of the occasion, and 
replied — 

“ Thanks, Margaret, thanks, my own love. It is no more 

than I expected of you but your perfect confidence is very 

touching to me. I shall never forget it. Heaven bless you 

for it ! What I was about to say to you was, that if, indeed, 

you place such entire confidence in me, there is in reality 
no reason why we should wear our hearts out by waiting for 
these dull dogs of lawyers.” 

“ I am quite ready to do anything that you may think best 
and wisest, my dear Frederick. As I have told you, your 
wishes are mine. What would you propose to do ? ” 

“ Simply to marry, — to be made man and wife, and let the 
papers be signed afterwards, when they are ready.” 

“ I suppose our parents would make no objection ? ” said 
Margaret, 

“ In their hearts they would not, we may be very sure. 
But probably they would be much embarrassed by our making 

the proposition. In young people in those who are in our 

position, Margaret, the world easily forgives such, departure 
from the established routine. In our parents the case might 
not be the same. They might be blamed. No — the way to 
act — the way in which these things are always done, is to 
ask no permission at allj to do it — and then come back to 
be forgiven 1 ” 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


363 


“ Oh, Frederick ! Do you think we could venture on such 
a course as that ? It frightens me to think of such a thing ! ” 

“ Dearest ! There would be nothing to alarm you. It 
would all be very easy, very simple. You say that you have 
confidence in me ; do you think that I would lead you into 
trouble or sorrow ? ” 

Oh no, oh no ! I have perfect confidence in you, Frederick, 
— in your affection, your sense, your courage. With you I am 
sure that I should fear nothing.” 

“ If so, my own, we may snap our fingers at Slowcome and 
Sligo, and name the auspicious day for ourselves.” 

“ Are you really serious, Frederick ? But I do not com- 
prehend what it is you would propose to do. Tell me what 
steps you would think it advisable to take.” 

“ Simply the same steps, Margaret, that are usually taken 
by so many others in our position ; — except, indeed, that very 
many have to contend with the difficulty of the opposition 
of their families to the match at all ; whereas we shall have 
no difficulties of the sort, or indeed of any sort. See now, my 
love ! If in truth you have confidence enough in me to be 
guided entirely by me in this matter, this is what I should 
propose. We will have no getting out of window, and rope- 
ladders, and all that sort of thing. All such grands moyens 
are for those who have to fight against the opposition of 
parents and guardians. We have no need of any such. This 
shall be our simple, common-sense programme. Some evening 
— say to-morrow evening — what do we gain by delay ? — I 
will have a post-chaise and the best pair of horses in Silverton, 
at the little door in the garden wall, that opens on the lane, 
near the Castle Head turnpike. Then after dinner, while the 
Doctor is still in the dining-room, or in his study, and Lady 
Sempronia is taking her after-dinner nap on the sofa, you 
shall just quietly walk out into the garden, come to the little 
door in the wall, which I will take care to have open, — I 
know where the gardener keeps the key — and there on the 
other side you find me waiting for you. You step into the 
carriage, I jump in after you ; and before anyj^ody has ob- 
served your., absence we are ten miles or so on our way to 
Scotland. That is what I would do, Margaret ; and what 
we will do, if you have that confidence in me you spoke of!” 

“ I have, I have, Frederick ; doubt it not. I have all con- 
fidence! But Scotland! That is a long way off! Why 

should we go to Scotland ? ” 


364 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Because, my darlings, that is the place where it is easiest 
for us to be married without a»y delay. The law is different 
in Scotland. People can be married there at once. It is not, 
indeed, absolutely necessary in our case ; for we might be 
married by special licence. But there would be more or less 
of delay. Whereas in Scotland we can be made indissolubly 
man and wife, as soon as ever our feet touch Scottish soil.’’ 

“ Is it possible ? Oh, Frederick, how extraordinary ! If 
anybody but you told me so, I should think they were telling 
fibs.” 

(The pretty creature knew all about a Gretna Green mar- 
riage, as well as any post-boy on the last stage over the 
border.) 

“It is not only possible, it is certain ; and what is more, 
very frequently done. Should you be afraid to make such a 
little trip with me ? ” 

“With you, Frederick, I should be afraid of nothing. I 

would fly with you to the end of the world If I had only 

had my things ready ! How am I to manage about my 
things ? ” 

“ What things, dearest, should you require ? ” 

“ Oh, my trunks — and who is to pack them ? — and my 
toilette things, you know — and and Simmons, you know ? ” 

“ Simmons ! what the maid at the Chase ? Are you mad, 
Margaret ? No, that would never do ! There can be no 
maid. We must be all in all to ourselves and to each other. 
Can you not trust me, my own Margaret ? ” 

Frederick here got possession of her hand again, and pressed 
it against his heart, looking wistfully into her face, as he 
spoke, with the most intense expression of supplication he 
could muster. For he felt that this was the difficult point. 

“ Go without a maid, Frederick ? Oh, impossible ! How 
am 1 CO dress myself? How am I ever to put on my orange 
blossoms and my wedding veil ? ” she said, disengaging her 
hand, and clasping it with its fellow, as she held them out 
towards him in passionate appeal. 

“ My dearest girl ! you do not understand the matter rightly. 
There will be no dressing for our wedding. You will be 
married directly you step out of the post-chaise, in the same 
clothes in which you stepped into it, at the garden door here. 
Instead of orange blossoms and bridal veils, you will have 
panting post-horses, and a village blacksmith for a clergy- 
man. You will have a pretty toilette de voyage. Why not the 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


365 


dress you have on ? I never saw you look more absolutely 
perfection ! ” 

“ It seems all so strange ; and to go away with you, alone, 
to such a distance ! ” 

“ Yes, my Margaret ! It needs perfect trust in me. Can 
you not have that trust ? ’’ 

“I can, I will, Frederick! I put myself and my destiny 
wholly, unhesitatingly, into your hands. Am I not your own ? 
I will do all that you would wish me to do.*^ 

Dearest, dearest Margaret ! Then listen to me. What 
time do you come out from dinner ? ” 

“ Oh, always before six I When we are alone. Aunt Sem- 
pronia always goes into the drawing-room almost the minute 
the cloth is taken away. Uncle, after a little while, goes 
into his study, where, to the best of my belief, he falls fast 
asleep.’^ 

“And when you get into the drawing-room?” asked Frede- 
rick. 

“ Oh, Aunt fidgets about a little, and scolds if the servants 
have made too big a fire ; and then settles herself on the sofa, 
and tells me to wake her when the Doctor comes in.” 

“ And how long is it generally before he does come in ? ” 
asked Frederick. 

“Oh, about an hour; sometimes more; never, I think, 

less than that.” 

“ Excellent — nothing could be better ! Then, when the old 
gentleman does come into his tea, and no Margaret is there, 
it will be some time before they guess that you have left the 
house; and when at last they come to the conclusion that 
you are not to be found in it, it will be a long while before 
they make a guess at the truth.” 

“ Or I could leave a little note on the drawing-room table to 
say that I had a bad headache, and had gone to bed, but 
would not disturb her ladyship’s nap. Then nothing would be 
known of my departure till ten o’clock the next morning.” 

“ Admirable I perfect 1 Why, you little darling, you were 
born for a conspirator. Nothing could be better imagined I 
But we must be sure that there is nobody coming to dinner. 
Is there anybody coming to-morrow ! ” 

“ But to-morrow will not do, Frederick ! ” said Margaret, in 
a different tone from that in which she had been speaking 
hitherto ; a simple business-like tone, which at once convinced 
him that for some reason the morrow would not do. 


366 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


“ Why, what is it, dear ? ’’ he asked, also speakings in a 
changed key. 

“ Because I am to go up to the Chase to-morrow morning.’^ 

“ Oh, Margaret, that is very unfortunate ! said Frederick, 
in a genuine tone of vexation and disappointment. 

“ But it cannot be helped, Frederick. It is all arranged. 
But I can return here on the following morning.” 

“ And will you do so, my own love ? May I depend on your 
doing so ? ” 

“ Frederick ! ” she said, in a tone of fond reproach. 

“And be on your guard, dearest! Take care that Kate 
does not worm your secret out of you, or make a shrewd guess 
at it.” 

“ Kate make a shrewd guess, — or worm a secret out of me .'” 
said Margaret, in a tone of profound disdain, which had more 
of genuine feeling in it, than any words she had uttered during 
the whole of the previous conversation with her lover. “ Why, 
Fred, what do you take me for ? Am I quite a simpleton ? ” 
she added, with a toss of her head that showed she really was 
indignant at the imputation. 

“ Anything but that, Margaret, Heaven knows 1 But it is 
necessary to be careful,” returned he, penitently. 

“ ISTever fear ; Kate will learn no secret of mine ! ” 

“ And you will be here on the following morning, without 
fail ? ” 

“ I have promised you, Frederick ; and you may be sure that 
I will not fail you,” said she, giving him her hand, as pledging 
her faith. 

“ My own darling ! my dearest wife ! How can I suffi- 
ciently thank you for the sweet trust and confidence you are 
placing in me ? — only by deserving it. And I will deserve it. 
See now ! On the evening of the day after to-morrow, I will 
be in the lane, on the other side of the garden door, with 
a carriage, and everything in readiness, at six o’clock, and 
will wait, with what patience I can, till you come. See, the key 
of the door is always to be found just here,” said Frederick, 
showing her a little cavity in the old wall near the ground ; 
“the old fellow always puts it there, never dreaming that 
anybody who wanted it might easily find it there. Now just 
let us see whether the lock goes easily enough for that little 

hand to open it gently quietly I ” said he, as he put 

the key into her hand ; the well oiled lock was turned with 
perfect ease ; “ Capital ! that will do. You will remember 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


367 


where to find the key. Perhaps it would be better that I 
should not attempt to see you on your return from the Chase. 

“ Perhaps not.’ ^ • 

“ When do you intend to be back ? ” 

‘‘ Oh, to dinner to-morrow ! I shall not stay there. I shall 
say that uncle made me promise to return to dinner without 
' fail. It is only that Kate wants to have a talk about some- 
thing* or other. She is such a bother ! Kate is exactly cut out 
for an old maid, and I believe she will live and die one.” 

“ You don’t think there will be anybody to dine here the day 
after to-morrow ? ” 

“ Oh ! It is very unlikely. We always discuss such things 
here ever so long in advance. Oh, no, I think we may be 
sure that we shall be all alone.” 

“ Then I think that we may consider all as settled ? The 
day after to-morrow, at six in the evening.” 

“ It is very sudden ! You will be very good to me, dearest, 
very indulgent, and very true; WesUcefas^ mon hien aime f ” 

“ I will, I will, my beloved Margaret, now and ever. How 
can I ever thank you enough for all your love and trust ? 
Dearest, be very sure that you shall not repent of them.” 

“ I do not think I shall, Frederick. So now, if all is defi- 
nitely settled, I think we had better go in. It must be nearly 
time for the dressing-bell to ring.” 

“ Adieu, sweetest ! To think that the next time we meet, it 
will be to part no more, till I can call you really, wholly 
mine ! ” 

I Au fevoir ! Ajpres demain d six Tieures!^^ whispered Mar- 
I garet, as he squeezed her hand in parting at the door of the 
. drawing-room, from which he escaped just as Lady Sempronia 
: was rousing herself and thinking that it was time to dress for 
dinner. 


368 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


CHAPTER XXXy. 

ONLY TILL TO-MORROW NIGHT ! 

The next morning, at a rather earlier hour than usual, — it 
was just as the Canon was leaving his house to step across 
the Close to morning service at the Cathedral, — the gig from 
Lindisfarn came to the door for Miss Margaret. Bat there 
was no Mr. Mat in it. The old groom who had driven in 
brought a note from Kate, to say that she had not been able to 
persuade Mr. Mat to come ; but that she had thought it better 
to send the gig, as Thomas Tibbs, with the carriage, would 
have been so much slower about it. 

Margaret was quite as well pleased to perform the short 
journey with the groom as with Mr. Mat. Indeed, it was felt 
by her as an escape, that she was not condemned to the latter 
penance. Nevertheless, she took it as an afifront, and resented 
the slight accordingly. 

She did not take anything with her, for she fully purposed 
being back again to dinner, as she told Lady Sempronia when 
she mentioned to her Kate’s summons. 

Her original plan had been to stay at the Chase for the 
night, and return to the Close the following morning, as she 
had said to Frederick. But a little consideration had led her 
to change it. In the first place, she felt on reflection that it 
would be very desirable to shorten as much as possible the talk 
which must pass between her and Kate. There could be 
nothing agreeable in it ; and she had no desire to sustain the 
part which she would be obliged to play before her sister for 
a greater number of hours than was absolutely inevitable. It 
would be a great thing to escape the long evening hours, and 
the tete-a-tete^ which it would be impossible to avoid, in Kate’s 
room after they had retired for the night. 

In the second place, she preferred having a little longer 
time between her return to the Close and the execution of her 
momentous project. Fred had told her that no “things” 
would be needed. But she could not absolutely subscribe to 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


369 


that view of the matter. There was, at least, her toilette de 
I voyage to be decided on ; — a matter not to be put off to the last 
I minute. As a mere matter of fatigue, too, it would be better 
' to start on her long journey after a day of perfect rest. 

Then again, she was inclined to think on consideration, that 
despite the possible difficulty about stable arrangements, she 
might find it easier to get back the same day than on the next. 
There would be the excuse of not having even what was neces- 
sary for the night ; there would be the keeping her uncle’s 
dinner waiting. She would then probably avoid seeing her 
father, who would most likely be out all the time she was at 
Lindisfarn, and would thus get rid of the danger of objection 
on his part. 

So, taking all these things into consideration, she had de- 
termined on curtailing her visit to Lindisfarn to the few hours 
that she could spend there between the breakfast and the 
dinner hour at the Close. 

“ Oh yes, dear ! Be sure you come back ! ” Lady Sempronia 

! had said ; “ It would be cruel to leave me all alone, and my 
poor nerves in the state they are ! And your poor uncle is 
madder than ever about this new whim of his monogram, or 

I whatever it is, he calls it, upon the Church at Chewton, such a 
place, my dear ! if you could only see it ! and I am frightened 
to death lest he should insist upon printing it. Oh, you must 
not leave me ! ” 

“ I only hope, dear Aunt, there will be no difficulty about 
sending me back either in the carriage or with the gig.’’ 

“ Oh, my dear Margaret, you must come back ! Stay, per- 
haps I had better write a line to dear Kate ; or would it be 

best to Miss Immy only you know ” 

“ Oh no ! best to Kate, dear Aunt ; if you would write a line 
to Kate, it might perhaps make matters easier.” 

I So the tearful lady sat down at her little desk, and fishing 
\ for a clean scrap of paper among a tumbled mass of bills of 
li all sorts and sizes, she wrote in the eminently ladylike hand 
of the last century, in which the body of the letters was scarcely 
greater in altitude than the thickuess of a line, while the tops 
and tails were of immoderate length, and the lines very far 
apart, the following note : 

j My dear Kate, 

i “ Margaret tells me that it is imperatively necessary that 

j she should go up to the Chase to-day. It is a sad trial to me 
24 


370 


LINDISFARN CHASE, 


to part with her. But, alas, what is life, mine especially, hut 
trials ! I trust, however, that you will send her back to me 
this evening. Would that I could send for her ! I will not 
now go into the sad detail of the reasons which make this im- 
possible to me. They are, alas ! too well known to you, my 
dear niece, and to the world in general, the more’s the pity. 
I must trust to your kindness, therefore, and to that of Mr. 
Mat, for I know that he is the Master of the Horse at Lindisfarn, 
not to disappoint me in this. Dear Margaret will explain to 
you how totally unfit I am to be left alone with your dear uncle, 
especially at the present moment. Indeed, I do not know what 
might be the consequences to me ! I am grieved to hear that 
the recent rains are likely to cause very wide-spread distress^ 
and perhaps ruin among the agricultural interests. But God’s 
will be done ! Tell your dear father so from me, with my kind 
love. I look to Margaret’s return by five o’clock ; for you 
know what your poor dear uncle’s temper is if the dinner is 
kept waiting. 

‘‘Tour affectionate Aunt, 

“ S. Lindisfarn.” 

“I don’t think Kate will be so cruel as not to send you 
back to me,” sighed Lady Sempronia, as she handed this note 
to Margaret. 

“ Oh no, dear Aunt ! depend upon it, I shall be back by 
five o’clock.” 

So Margaret got into the gig, and was driven in less than 
an hour up to the Chase. 

She was in high spirits ; or at least in a state of excitement 
which produced a similar appearance ; and had some difficulty 
in meeting her sister with the depression of manner befitting 
the part she had to play. 

“ Oh, Margaret dear ! I am so glad to have you at home 
again. I have so much to talk to you of,” said Kate, as she 
met her at the door. 

“ And we have not very much time to say it in, Kate ; for I 
must be back again in the Close by five o’clock.” 

“ Back again to-night ? ” 

“ Yes. It is impossible to avoid it. See, here is a note for 
you from my aunt. Poor soul, she is in a very low way ! I 
camiot leave her. You will see what she says. Besides, I 
have bi'ought home none of my things.” 

“ But, my dear Margaret, how are you to get back again to 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


871 


Silverton, this evening ? You know what a bother there 
always is with Tibbs.” 

“ That is why I spoke about it the first thing, Kate. It must 
be managed somehow. I suppose I am not in Mr. Mat’s good 
books, by his not condescending to come for me this morning. 
But you can make him do anything you like.” 

“I suppose it is impossible to disappoint my aunt,” said 
Kate, with a sigh, as she finished reading her aunt’s letter. 
“ But what is it she alludes to as her particular sorrow at this 
time more than usual ? ” 

“Oh, you know my aunt ! She is in a great trouble, jus^ 
at present, for fear my uncle should take it into his head to 
print a new paper he has been writing all about an old church 
at his living in a place they call Chewton — a most horrid, 
desolate place, aunt says, out in the moor. The paper is to 

be read at the meeting of the eccle eccloy whatever it 

is they call themselves, next month ; and as uncle is very par- 
ticularly proud of it, she is in great fear of the probable con- 
sequences. And indeed I may perhaps be of some use ; for I 
have some little influence over Uncle Theophilus.” 

“ Well, I suppose you must go,” sighed Kate; “and I will 
see what can be done about sending you. Perhaps the old 
pony could be put in the gig, just to take you to Silverton. 
Come ! let us go up to my room. Koll is out with the dogs.” 

“ But had we not better settle first about the gig ? ” urged 
Margaret, who was by no means willing to allow any amount 
of doubt to rest upon the execution of her programme. 

“Very well! If you will go up stairs, and take your hat 
off, I will go and see about it, and come to you in my room.” 

Margaret ran quickly up the stairs, and into her sister’s 
room. There her first care was not to take off her hat, but to 
cast a sharp, searching glance at Kate’s table, to see if any 
note or letter had been left there, which, according to Kate’s 
careless habits in such matters, might, even by the outside of 
it, perhaps, give her some hint of the position of matters with 
her sister. But there was nothing on the table — not even 
the usual litter of Kate’s manifold ordinary occupations. The 
little desk, instead of standing open, was shut up ; and there 
was not so much as a book to be seen lying about. All the 
drawing things at the other small table were piled into a little 
heap in the middle of it, and had evidently not been touched 
for days, 

If any more intelligently sympathising eye than her sister’s 

24 — 2 


372 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


had looked in Kate’s face, the looker would not have failed to 
be struck by evidence of the cessation of all the ordinary 
sources of interest and occupation, as legible there as in the 
condition of her room. 

And there was not wanting such sympathizing eyes at Lin- 
disfarn. It was plain enough to more than one loving ob- 
server, that Kate had been stricken somehow or other, whether 
in heart or merely in body, and matters were out of joint at 
the Chase in consequence. Mr, Mat was miserable, and cross 
to everyone but the object of his trouble. He would neglect 
his dinner, and sit looking wistfully at Kate, as she wearily 
went through the daily ceremony; and when she and Miss 
Immy had left the room, would say to the Squire : 

“ The lass is not right, Squire ! She is not like herself, no 
more than I am like the Bishop of Silverton ! But as for tell- 
ing me that she is thinking anything about that fellow Fal- 
coner they may tell that to the marines! I’ve known the 

lass from her cradle up. It’s as damned a pack of nonsense. 
Squire ” 

And Mr. Mat’s black eye grew moist under its shaggy black 
brow as he spoke. 

“ God grant it may be as you say ! ” sighed the Squire ; 
“anything better than that.” 

Miss Immy, for her part, threatened Kate with Dr. Blakistry. 
As yet Kate had, not without difficulty, fought off this strong’ 
measure. But Miss Immy was getting really uneasy about 
her ; and it was clear that, unless she could manage to “ look 
like herself again,” she would have to submit to a professional 
visit from the doctor before long. 

And the alternative was quite out of Kate’s power. She 
could not look like herself again ; for she felt very unlike that 
former self. 

And, worst of all. Lady Farnleigh was still absent. !Most 
unfortunately she had been detained, much beyond the time she 
had at first intended, by the serious illness of her daughter-in- 
law. That lady was now, however, much better ; and there 
was a prospect of the “ fairy godmother’s ” return before long. 

Kate often sighed as she remembered the happy careless 
days, when she had so nicknamed her best and dearest friend, 
and thought how infinitely greater was her need of such a 
protectress than she had dreamed it ever could be. 

She joined Margaret in a few minutes in her room, going 
up the stairs much more slowly than she had done. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


373 


“ I have arranged for you to have the gig for your return/’ 
she said, sitting down wearily beside her sister. Mr. Mat 
made no difficulty. The gig will be at the door at half-past 
three.” 

“ Mr. Mat makes less difficulty about sending me away from 
Lindisfarn than about bringing me back to it. Gela s^entend! 
I daresay there is no love lost between us.” 

“ Oh, Margaret ! I am sure that Mr. Mat does not feel 
otherwise than kindly towards you.” 

“It matters very little to me how he feels, that is one good 
thing ! But now, Kate, what was your object in making me 
come up here ? ” 

“ Surely you must know, Margaret. Julian has recovered ; 
he has left England. We are no longer bound by any promise 
of secresy ; and it is above all things necessary that the error 
as to his supposed death should be corrected with as little 
delay as possible. But I was unwilling to take any step in the 
matter without first speaking with you.” 

“I suppose it will be necessary that the fact should be 
known,” replied Margaret ; “ but do not you think that it 
would be more proper to leave it to him to make the announce- 
ment himself? You remember that he told you he purposed 
doing so.” 

“ Yes ; but what I cannot bear is, that we should know it, 
and keep the knowledge to ourselves. I cannot bear the burden 
of the secret any longer, Margaret.” 

“ I do not see that the burden has been a very heavy one to 
3"ou, Kate. To me it has been different. In the circumstances 
in which I have been placed, it has been very painful to me 
to be obliged to keep such a secret to myself. Happily I know 
well that the knowledge of it would have occasioned no differ- 
ence in the conduct of my future husband. Nevertheless you 
can understand, I suppose, that it would be unpleasant to me 
to have to confess that I knew the real state of the case, so 
early as for my misfortune I did, in consequence of your im- 
prudent visit to that smuggler man’s cottage.” 

“ I will not say anything about that, Margaret. I thought 
it was right under the circumstances to go there, and I went. 
Now it would be infinitely more agreeable to me — it would be 
a greater consolation and comfort to me than you can imagine 
— if I could not only let the fact of Julian’s existence be known 
at once, but also let it be understood that I knew it at the 
time I did know it. You cannot guess how much I would give 


374 


LINDISFAUN CHASE. 


to do this. Nevertheless I have made up my mind to abstain 
from doing it for your sake, for I can fully feel how dreadful, 
how intolerable it would be to you, that it should be known 
that you had accepted an offer of marriage without saying a 
word about it, or in any way intimating that your position was 
a very different one from what it was supposed to be.’’ 

“ I could not help myself, as I have told you before,” said 
Margaret, sullenly. 

“ It was very unfortunate,” sighed Kate ; but I have told 
you that I have made up my mind not to say anything about 
the date at which this important secret reached our knowledge. 
You must feel, however, dear Margaret, that the time has come 
when it is absolutely necessary to break off this engagement, 
and ” 

“Break off will nothing make you believe, Kate, that 

all people are not so sordid in their views as you imagine 
them ? ” interrupted Margaret, while her cheek flushed up, and 
her eyes flashed Are. “ It is very singular, sister, how particu- 
larly anxious you are, that the engagement between me and 
Fred should be broken off ; but you may as well give it up as 
a bad job. Make your mind up to it, once for all, that it 
won’t and can’t be broken off.” 

Kate looked into her sister’s gleaming angry eyes, with a 
quiet glance of mute appeal, and of sorrow, rather than 
reproach, as she said : 

“Can you not believe, Margaret, that your happiness and 
welfare are all I wish for or care about in this matter ? ” 

“ It don’t seem like it ” 

“And that when I speak of breaking off the engagement 
you have made, I mean merely breaking that which was entered 
into in ignorance of the truth, to be replaced, if the parties to 
it wish to do so, by a fresh engagement made with full know- 
ledge of the truth? You can’t doubt that it is absolutely 
necessary that no time should be lost in telling Mr. Falconer 
the truth ; and it was about this that I wanted to speak to you 
to-day.” 

“ I am sure I don’t see why you should take so much trouble 
to meddle with my affairs ! I suppose I am the proper person 
to tell Mr. Falconer, as you call him ; and I presume I may be 
left to do so in my own way, and at my own time.” 

“ But that is just the point, Margaret. Certainly you are 
the person who ought to tell him. He ought most unquestion- 
ably to hear it from no one but yourself. But the time — that 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 375 

is the question. At your own time, you say. When is that 
time, Margaret ? That is what I want to settle with you.” 

“ Now I am not going to be dictated to, as if I were a school- 
girl and you my mistress, Kate. Kemember that you are not 
even my elder sister ; though you seem strangely inclined to 
take the tone of one. I have just as good a right to preach 
to you, as you to me, remember ! I told you from the begin- 
ning, fairly and honestly, that my views and ideas differed from 
yours in this matter, and that I intended to be guided in it 
by my own, and not by yours. This is still my intention, I beg 
you to understand. I shall choose my time for telling my future 
husband the whole of this strange, improbable story, according 
to my own judgment and convenience. I presume you will not 
think fit to take it upon yourself to meddle between us.” 

“ Most certainly, Margaret, I shall not take it upon myself 
to say anything upon the subject to Mr. Falconer, if you mean 
that. But I must speak to those who ought necessarily to be 
made acquainted with the truth in the first instance. I must 
tell my father, and my Uncle Theophilus. And it is this that 
I was unwilling to do, without having first spoken to you, on 
purpose that you might have the opportunity of yourself speak- 
ing to Mr. Falconer before the facts reach him from anyone 
else. You know my father. Do you think that he would suffer 
any uncertainty to remain on the subject in the mind of any- 
body, for an hour after he had heard the truth ? You know 
my uncle. Do you think he is likely to keep it secret ? You 
know what Silverton is. Do you think anybody in all the 
place is likely to remain in ignorance of the facts four-and- 
twenty hours after I have told them to Papa ? And do you 
see now, that I had reason enough to make a point of your 
coming up here to-day?” 

Margaret bit her lips till they were white, and remained 
silent for a minute or two. 

“And when do you mean to make this communication to 
Papa ? ” she then asked, keeping her eyes fixed, as she spoke, 
on the floor. 

“ I should have done it long ago, if it had not been for this 
unhappy entanglement of yours.” 

Margaret raised her eyes to her sister’s face for an instant, 
and the forked lightning shot forth dangerously. 

“It was only to give you time,” continued Kate, with in- 
creased and almost tearful earnestness, “ that I have abstained 
thus long. I can abstain no longer ! The weight of the secret 


376 


LlNtHSFARK CHASE. 


seems as if it were crusliing* my heart. I must tell it. But I 

would fain that you told Mr. Falconer first, or at least as 

soon.” 

“ You are very peremptory, Kate ! You have got the whip 

hand of me, and you are determined to use it cruelly 

cruelly ! ” 

“ Oh, Margaret, Margaret ! ” sobbed Kate. 

“Yes, cruelly!” continued her sister, speaking with ex- 
treme bitterness. “It is your turn now! And I am in 

your power to a certain degree to a certain degree. 

Well ! what time do you condescend to assign to me in your 
mercy ? ” 

“ You are going back to Silverton this evening ; — it is so 
far convenient — I thought that it would have been necessary 
to send for him here. As it is it will be easier. You will, in 
all probability, see him this evening.” 

“ You find it very easy to settle it all your way. In all pro- 
bability I shall do nothing of the kind. I have no reason to 
think that he will come to my uncle’s this evening.” 

“ It would be very easy to send a word across the Close, re- 
questing him to do so.” 

“ Kate ! what do you take me for ? If you have been 
brought up to do that sort of thing, I, for my part, have not, 
and flatter myself that I know what convenance requires rather 
better than to take such a step.” 

“ I can see no objection to it under the circumstances, and 
for the purpose we are talking about, I confess, Margaret,” 
replied Kate, with a deep sigh. “What would you propose 
doing yourself? ” 

“ If you will promise me not to say any word till to-morrow 
evening,” replied Margaret, after a few moments of deep con- 
sideration, “ I will promise you to tell Frederick the first time 
I do see him. I think it very likely that I may see him in 

the course of to-morrow almost certain. I will be content 

if you will give me only till to-morrow evening. You may 
tell Papa, and all Silverton, too, if you like, after dinner to- 
morrow. Will that do ? ” said Margaret, inwardly congratu- 
lating herself on the admirable good fortune which had 
prompted Frederick to propose the scheme he had, and to fix 
the execution of it for such an early day. What on earth 
would have become of her, but for this happy piece of good 
fortune ! As it was, the fatal facts would not be known till 
they were safe on their way to Scotland ; and when they came 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 377 

back married, Frederick would learn it as a bit of news that 
had reached Silverton in the interval of their absence. 

“Very well,” said Kate, slowly and reluctantly; “let it be 
so, since you are unwilling to release me sooner. Let it remain 
settled that I tell Papa the whole of the facts to-morrow even- 
ing after dinner ; — Papa and Mr. Mat, mind, Margaret ! 

there must be no more secrets ! and Mr. Mat is likely 

enough, mind, to have out the gig and drive off to Silverton, 
that same evening, to tell Uncle Theophilus that his son is 
still living ” 

“ Ko ! you must give me the whole evening,” exclaimed Mar- 
garet; remembering that Mr. Mat’s untimely arrival in the 
Close might be the means of prematurely discovering her 
absence from her uncle’s house ; — “ I bargain for the whole 
evening. Who knows at what time I may see Frederick ? 
He often comes in late. If you wish to be of any service to 
me, Kate, you must give me the whole evening. You can tell 
Papa the first thing the next morning. That can make no dif- 
ference, you know, Kate. Let it be the first thing in the 
morning, the day after to-morrow. And then let Mr. Mat 
have the satisfaction of telling the world of our ruin as soon 
as he likes. I will find the means of doing my part before that 
time. You pledge yourself, then, Kate, to say nothing till the 
morning of the day after to-morrow ? ” 

“ So be it then, Margaret. I promise you that I will keep 
the secret till that time. Then I shall, without fail, tell Papa ; 
and I think it more likely than not, that Mr. Mat will tell my 
uncle within an hour afterwards.” 

“ Let him do his worst ! ” said Margaret, bitterly but yet 
triumphantly. 

“ Oh, Margaret, I wish you could think that we all have but 
one heart and one interest in this sad matter. You may trust 
me I know what I am talking about, when I tell you that not 
a soul in this house or in Silverton will feel our misfortune 
more acutely than poor Mr. Mat.” 

“Well! it don’t much matter. There is small consolation 
in his caring about it, whether he does or not ; and now, I 
suppose, our business is settled.” 

“Yes,” said Kate, sadly; “will you come and see Miss 
Immy ? ” 

“ I suppose I must before I go back ! it is a great bore. 
But I want to go into my own room first,” answered Margaret, 
whose mind was busy with the consideration whether there 


378 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


might not be certain small articles at the Cliase, which it 
might be desirable for her to take with her in her flight to 
Scotland. 

Kate accompanied her sister into the adjoining room, and 
Margaret had some difiiculty in making her comprehend that 
she wished to be there alone. She succeeded at last, and Kate 
left her, thinking that she wished to commune with herself on 
the terribly painful task which lay before her. 

Margaret hastily bolted the door behind her, and did not 
come out of her room till it wanted only a quarter of an hour 
to the time the gig was ordered for her return to Silverton. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE TWO SIDES OF THE WALL. 

Margabet returned to her dinner at her uncle’s in the Close 
in good time. She was still in high spirits, or at least in that 
state of nervous excitement, which in some persons so closely 
resembles them. She was, at all events, well contented with 
the result of her visit to the Chase ; and the game she had 
been, for the last month past, so desperately playing, seemed 
definitively to be at last in her own hands. 

When she had supposed herself, as all the rest of the Sill- 
shire world supposed her, to be an heiress to landed property 
to the amount of two thousand a-year, she had not been very 
particularly anxious or eager about Frederick Falconer’s pro- 
posal. The match seemed a very fair one in a prudential point 
of view, and the gentleman was by no means disagreeable to 
her. “ She had never seen anybody she liked better,” as the 
classical phrase runs upon such occasions, but Margaret had 
been far too well brought up, and had much too strong a feel- 
ing of what she owed to herself and to the proprieties of 
maidenly delicacy, to be in any danger of breaking her pure 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


379 


and gentle heart for any son of Adam. She was quite con- 
tented to do her little bit of flirting, and trot out her pretty 
little airs and graces, and show off her, certainly not little 
attractions, all within the most rigorous bounds of the strictest 
reading of the code of the convenances, and leave the result to 
work itself out, as providence and the gentleman might decree. 
But all this was suddenly and tremendously changed by that 
terrible communication from her sister. Then it became abso- 
lutely necessary that this chance should be seized on, and that 
promptly. It was most desperately a case of now or never 
with her. Any sin against those convenances, which assiduous 
drilling, and the social hemisphere in which she had lived, had 
made a second nature to her, was extremely repugnant to all 
Margaret’s feelings. If the lex non scrijpta prescribed that at 
any given juncture of her girlhood life it was permissible for 
her to allow a creature of the other sex to squeeze her little 
finger, “ all the best and most beautiful feelings of her nature ” 
would have been outraged, if any man should have dared to 
make the penultimate digit participate in the pressure. 

Still all the little outlook into the world around her, which 
it had been possible for her to obtain, convinced her that the 
sacred code of les convenances, was made and provided for the 
guidance of les jeunes ^ersonnes of a certain standing in the 
social world — a position from which she was — alas, and alas ! 
— suddenly and cruelly hurled. Quite other maxims and rules 
were needed for the being which she had become — an ad- 
venturess. It was useless, and mere folly, to blink the fact, or 
mince the phrase. She was an adventuress; and however 
painful it might be to one not “ to the manner born,” it be- 
hoved her to act as such. She had accepted the position then 
en maitresse femme, and vigorously set about acting as the 
exigencies of the part demanded of her. 

It had not been a pleasant thing to live through the past 
month, with the horrible sword of ignominious failure sus- 
pended over her head by a thread all the time. Very much 
otherwise. But now her boldness and her ability seemed about 
to be rewarded. At last she was within sight of port, and to 
all appearance safe. And she did feel that she deserved some 
applause for the manner in which she had steered her bark in 
a sea of no ordinary danger and difficulty. 

Not that the future was all smooth water. Far from it. 
Margaret indulged herself in no such weak illusion. Her 
Frederick would be grievously disappointed, doubtless, when 


380 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


the first news that met him on bringing* his wife back to his 
native town, would be that he had married a beggar. She had 
a very strong conviction that her Frederick was about the last 
man in the world to commit such a folly and indiscretion. 
And Margaret was by no means inclined to think the less well 
of him on that account. No doubt he would be greatly disap- 
pointed — thunderstruck ! No doubt there would be unpleasant- 
ness. What else could be looked for ? Was not all this mise- 
rable business calculated to produce unpleasantness of all 
kinds ? Still she would be a wife ; and she flattered herself 
that she should know how to use that vantage-ground in such 
a manner as to make the position not too intolerable a one for 
her. 

It was no use thinking of that, however, now ! Sufficient 
for the day was the evil, and the work thereof. What she had 
now to do, was to step boldly forwards on the path towards 
her object. Fate itself seemed helping her. What, what 
should she have done, had not the delays of the lawyers thus 
happily tired out Frederick’s patience ! She had been living 
in the hope of inducing Kate to keep the fatal secret a little 
longer. It seemed, however, to judge by her sister’s words 
and manner, in this last interview, that that would have been a 
vain hope. What a blessing was the foolish impatience, which 
would not let that fond fellow Frederick wait for his happiness 
any longer ! 

These were the meditations which occupied Margaret’s mind 
during several of the hours of that last night in her uncle’s 
house. The next morning at breakfast a new source of anxiety 
arose. As the Doctor and his wife and niece were sitting 
at their morning meal, the Doctor announced his intention 
of paying a visit that day to his living of Chewton in the 
Moor. 

“ It is absolutely necessary, my dear, though in truth it is a 
very great trouble. But in the interests of science, you know, 
I never spare myself.” 

“ Nor others. Dr. Lindisfarn ! ” Said Lady Sempronia. 

“My dear, I am sorry to inconvenience you in any way, 
though I do not see how it should inconvenience you. It is indis- 
pensably necessary that I should verify the accuracy of certain 
statements and descriptions. I am come to a point at which 
I cannot get on without another personal inspection of the 
buildings and localities. Heaven knows I have no liking for 
the job personally. But when the accuracy and completeness 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


381 


of the work, on which so much depends, are concerned, I cannot 
hesitate. I was going to mention that I shall not be able 
to get home to dinner. If I could have gone early this 
morning I might have done so. But I wished to be in 
my place at the morning service. I shall start directly after- 
wards.” 

“ You know best, Dr. Lindisfarn ! ” said his long-suffering 
wife, with a resigned sigh. 

“We will not have the bore of a regular dinner to-day my 
dear,” said she to Margaret, as soon as the Doctor had left the 
breakfast-room ; “ we will have a cutlet or something at 
luncheon, and then we shall enjoy our toast and tea.” 

It was Lady Sempronia’s thrifty habit to make the absence 
of her lord and master at least so far an advantage as to save 
a dinner by it. 

But then it occurred to Margaret that if the ordinary routine 
of the day were thus altered, her aunt’s after-dinner nap would 
probably share the fate of the dinner, or at least be pushed out 
of its usual place in the day’s programme. And if so, it might 
very well happen that it would be impossible for her to escape 
from Lady Sempronia at the right moment. Usually on such 
occasions as the present, the tea thus promoted to the position 
of a meal, was served at seven o’clock. And it seemed likely 
that at six, the fateful hour fixed for Margaret’s escape, her 
gently fretful ladyship would be awake and in the drawing- 
room, waiting for the repast which such ladies love, and ex 
pecting her niece to keep her company. 

During the whole forenoon Margaret was in a state of great 
anxiety ; and was eagerly debating within herself the expediency 
of dispatching Parsons with a note to Frederick informing him 
of the state of the case, and of the probable necessity of modi- 
fying their plans to meet the new circumstances. 

It was past twelve o’clock, and she had just made up her 
mind that she would do this immediately after luncheon, when 
once again Fortune stood her friend, and made any such step 
unnecessary. She was in her own room nervously looking 
over for the twentieth time every article of the costume she 
intended to travel in, when she was startled by a little tap at 
her door. Hurriedly shutting the drawers in which she had 
laid out most of these in readiness, she told the applicant to 
come in. It was Lady Sempronia’s maid, with, — 

“ Please, Miss Margaret, my lady bade me say that she is 
took so bad with her nerves that she will not be able to come 


382 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


down to lunclieon. She hopes you will excuse her, and she 
would be glad to speak to you.’^ 

Margaret found her aunt in bed. The prominence wifch 
which the dangers to be feared from the growing importance of 
the Doctor’s monograph on Chewton Church had been brought 
before her prescient mind had, as usual, proved too great a trial 
for her enfeebled nervous system. She had, she declared, a 
racking headache — feared she should become hysterical — felt 
that her only chance was to keep herself absolutely quiet ; — 
and should not leave her bed any more that day, even if she 
were able to do so on the morrow. 

It was difficult for Margaret to keep the decently sorrowful 
face of sympathy which this communication required, so great 
a relief was it to her. Was it possible for anything to be 
better ? Fortune herself seemed to have undertaken the task 
of taking all difficulties out of the way, and leaving the coast 
clear for her ! 

The remainder of the day passed very slowly with Margaret, 
but not altogether unhappily. She was nervous . and excited, 
but full of hope and confidence. Twice she walked ' round 
the garden, and glanced sharply at the cavity in the wall near 
the little door into the lane, to satisfy herself that the key was 
there. She longed to take it up, and try it in the lock ; but 
refrained. It was imprudent ; and Margaret was a very 
prudent girl ! 

At last the feared, yet wished-for hour came. At last it 
wanted only a quarter to six. The note to be given to Lady 
Sempronia when her ladyship’s cup of tea was carried up to 
her was all ready. 

“ Dear Aunt,” it said, 

“ The shock which has sent you to bed, has reacted — 
less forcibly, no doubt, than on your delicately sensitive nervous 
system — on me too. I have a violent headache and am now 
going to bed. I have told Elizabeth to give you this when she 
takes you your tea, and not before, lest you might be getting 
a little sleep. I hope, dear Aunt, that we may both be better 
to-morrow. 

Your loving niece, 

“ Margaret.” 

This was given to Lady Sempronia’s maid, with injunctions 
not to disturb her mistress till tea-tinie; then to carry her a 
cup of tea, and give her the note at the same time, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


383 


I have a dreadful headache myself, Elizabeth,” added the 
young lady; “ I shall not stay up for tea, but go to my room at 
once. If I want you to undress me I will ring ; but do not 
disturb me unless I do ; for if I can keep myself quiet and get 
to sleep, I would not be waked for the world. If it is late 
when I wake, I will manage to undress by myself.” 

Then, while the servant was going through the hall towards 
the kitchen, Margaret heavily and wearily dragged herself up 
half-a-dozen stairs toward her room. But as soon as ever the 
swing door which shut off the servants’ part of the house had 
slammed to behind Elizabeth, she turned, and darting light of 
foot as an antelope, and swift as thought into the drawing- 
room, passed g’ently through the window, carefully shutting it 
after her, into the garden. Then tripping with short-drawn 
breath, and beating heart, along the dark garden walk to 
the little door in the wall leading to the lane, she paused, 
pressing her hand to her bosom, and intently listening. But 
no sound broke the silence save the audible beating of her 
own heart. 

She had not waited thus more than a few minutes, however, 
before the quarter bell in the neighbouring cathedral tower, 
after o ^strange sort of grating, jarring prelude, as if clearing 

its voice before speaking, sung out its clear ding-dong! 

ding-dong 1 ding-dong! ding-dong ! Four quarters. 

It was the full time then. Margaret had not been sure whether 
it might not yet want a quarter to the hour fixed. No ! and 
in the next instant the deep bass of the hour bell tolled, one 

two three four five six ! Of course she 

knew very well that the bell was going to strike six. Yet it 
seemed to her fancy as if that sixth stroke had a fatefiil clinch- 
ing power in it, which cast the die of her fate, and made it im- 
possible for her to draw back. 

She listened still more intently than before ; but heard 
nothing. Perhaps the carriage had already taken up its posi- 
tion on the other side of the wall ; and perhaps Frederick was 
within a few inches of her on the other side of the door, afraid 
to give any audible sign of his presence for fear that it might 
reach other ears beside her’s. 

After a few more minutes of intent listening, which seemed 
to be at least four times as many as they were, she decided that 
this must be the case, and she determined to open the door. 
There could be very little risk in . doing so, for the lane was a 
lonely one, but little frequented by day, and still more certain 


384 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


to be undisturbed by night. She turned the key in the lock 
with the greatest precaution, starting at the little click it made 
just at the end of the operation, and cautiously opening the 
door a little, peered out into the darkness of the lane. She 
could see nothing ! And yet she was sure she had counted the 
striking of the clock aright. 

And then a sudden hot flush came over her ; and she began 
to think of the retributive storm of indignation and reproach 
with which she would visit the delinquent for his unpunctuality 
as soon as he should arrive. 

She all but closed the door, leaving barely ‘ a sufiicient 
aperture for her to keep her anxious watch of the lane. And 
the intolerably tedious minutes slowly accumulated themselves, 
till once again there came the harsh rattle in the quarter bell’s 
throat, preparatory to its clearly chimed ding-dong — ^the first 
quarter after six. 

Margaret began to feel both physically and morally very 
cold. A sickening sensation of fear crept over her. Yet there 
was no other possible course to follow but still to wait. And 
Margaret still WEiited, with a rapidly gathering agony in her 
heart, a few hours of which might be deemed a fair expiation 
for many an ill-spent day. 

The more Margaret reflected, the more inexplicable it seemed 
to her. And if she could have perceived what was taking 
place on the other side of the wall, at the moment she was 
leaving the house to come out into the garden, she would still 
have been as much at a loss to understand the meaning of what 
she would have seen. 

The phenomena which presented themselves on that side of 
the brick and mortar screen fell out in this wise. 

At a little more than half-past five o’clock, Frederick, true 
to his engagements, was giving the last instructions to a well- 
fed post-boy in the Lindisfarn Arms hostel and posting house. 
These instructions were, that he should remain in readiness 
himself, his chaise, and his pair of horses (for Frederick con- 
sidered that four horses would only serve to attract attention 
in a manner that was not desirable ; and that the notion that 
four horses can draw a light chaise over a short stage more 
quickly than two is a mere popular delusion, unless, indeed, the 
stage should be a specially hilly one), within the safe seclusion 
of the inn yard till six o’clock — that he should then quietly 
come out, and proceeding by a certain back way, such as most 
old-world Englii^h cities are provided with, towards the turn- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


385 


pike at tlic Castle Head as it was called, which was very near 
the embouchure of the lane behind the Doctor’s garden into 
the road, should so come on towards the little door from which 
Margaret was to emerge, telling anybody who might question 
him — if the questioner were one to whom it was necessary to 
reply at all — that he, the postboy, was going to carry Dr. 
Lindisfarn up to the Chase to dinner — a perfectly reasonable 
and satisfactory reply, inasmuch as the Doctor when going 
to the Chase usually did get into his chaise at the little garden 
door, which opening so near to the Castle Head turnpike saved 
him a considerable detour through the town. 

Nothing could have been better arranged. Jonas Wyvill 
the postboy — he was a cousin, I fancy, of those Wyvills, one of 
whom was a verger in the cathedral, and another a super- 
annuated gamekeeper up at the Chase, and “ boy ” as he was 
perennially in professional posting parlance, had long since 
reached a very discreet 'age — Jonas Wyvill had pocketed his 
retaining fee, perfectly comprehended his instructions, got into 
the saddle at six punctually, precisely as the cathedral clock — 
that same bell to which Margaret had listened so nervously — 
struck the quarters, and quietly proceeded towards the place of 
rendezvous. 

Frederick, fond and faithful, was standing on the other side 
of the little door at the moment that his beloved was tripping 
across the garden towards it. In another minute they would 
have been in each other’s arms — and in the next dashing along 
the road on their way to Scotland. 

What could have interrupted so suddenly the course of true 
love which had run smoothly so very nearly to the point of 
pouring itself into the ocean of connubial felicity ? 

Frederick was on the outside of the garden door, with his 
ear close to the panel of it. It wanted just one minute to 
six ; when, instead of the light step which he was straining 
his ear to catch the sound of on the other side of the wall, and 
which in another minute he would have heard, he became aware 
of a footfall of a very different character close to him in the 
lane. And the next instant he distinguished in the rapidly 
increasing darkness, old Gregory Greatorex, his father’s long- 
tried, trusty, and confidential clerk. 

Old Greg Greatorex was one of those men who look like over- 
grown and ill- grown boys all the days of their lives. Old Greg 
was nearly sixty years old, and as grey as a badger. But still 
his gaunt shambling figure had the peculiar effect above 
25 


386 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


mentioned. Perhaps it was mainly occasioned by the fact that 
his body was very short in proportion to his long flute-like legs. 
They seemed — those straggling, ill-shapen, knock-kneed, long 
legs — to be attached to his body rather after the fashion 
in which those of Punch’s dramatis personce are arranged, 
than according to the more usual method of nature’s handi- 
work. Then he had no beard, or any other visible or traceable 
hair on his broad white face. Old Greg had lived, man and 
boy, with Mr. Falconer as long and rather longer than he 
could remember anything. And it would have been difficult to 
imagine any command of the banker which Gregory would 
not have faithfully executed, not exactly from affection for his 
master — Greg Greatorex was not of a remarkably affectionate 
nature — but simply because it seemed to his intelligence part 
of the natural, necessary, and inevitable nature of things that 
it should be so. 

“ Come, come away, Sir, quick I this instant ! Thank the 
Lord, I’m in time ! ” panted the old man into Frederick’s ear. 

“ Good God ! Gregory, what do you mean ? What are you 
come here for ? Why, man, the governor’s up to it,” he 
whispered into the old clerk’s ear. 

“ I know ! I know. Sir. The governor has sent me here 
now. It is a good job I am in time. The old gentleman 
would have run here himself, only he knew I could come fastest. 
I never saw him in such a way.” 

“ What’s up now, then ? What is it, in Heaven’s name, 
Gregory ? ” 

“ You must ask your father that, Sir. There was no time 
to tell anything ; — it was just touch and go ! But all the fat 
is in the fire some way or another ; and if this runaway job 
had a’ come off, you would have been a ruined man, Mr. Frede- 
rick. I heard your father say so much.” 

“ Good Heavens ! What am I to do ? ” whispered Frede- 
rick. 

“ Come away. Sir, from here. Come to your father and hear 
all about it. Any way you may be quite sure there is to be no 
elopement to-night.” 

“ And Margaret ? — ^the lady, Gregory ? What in the world 
am I to do about the lady? She will be here in a minute, 
if she is not at this moment waiting on the other side of this 
door.” 

“ Leave her to wait, Sir j she will soon find out that some- 
thing has put the job off/’ 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


387 


Slie will never forgive me,” siglied Frederick. 

“ It don’t much signify whether she does or not, so far as 
I can understand,” chuckled the old clerk. “ But you can 
come and hear what your father has to tell you about it, 
and thank your stars that this business was put a stop to 
in time.” 

But the chaise will be here in a minute, Gregory. There ! it 
is striking six now. The chaise was to come out from the 
Lindisfarn Arms as it struck six.” 

“ I’ll go and meet it. Sir, and turn it back, while you go to 
your father. It would come up the back lane to the Castle 
Head, I suppose ? ” 

“ Yes, you will meet it in the lane. It is old Jonas Wyvill ; 
you must tell him that it is put off for to-night.” 

“ Or rather that it is not ‘off ’ ; ” said Greatorex, who had 
recovered breath enough for superfluous words by this time, and 
for a chuckle at his own wit. 

They had withdrawn from the immediate vicinity of the 
door in the wall, as the clock struck, but still spoke in whispers. 
Had Margaret opened the door a moment sooner than she did, 
she would have seen the two men, within a few paces of her. 
But they separated at the mouth of the little lane some fifty 
yards from the Doctor’s garden-door, as the last words were 
spoken, — the old clerk to meet and turn back Jonas "Wyvill 
and the chaise ; Frederick to hasten to his father’s house in 
the Close, to learn the explanation of this most unexpected and 
unpleasant termination of the enterprise which had seemed on 
the eve of successful execution. 

He did for one instant think of seeing his Margaret, and 
telling her as best he might, that some contretemps had frus- 
trated their plan for to-night, instead of thus brutally leaving 
her to the agonies of suspense, and slowly growing conviction 
that it was a hopeless disappointment. But Frederick was not 
a very brave man, and he stood in no little fear of his gentle 
Marguerite. It would not, it may be admitted, have been a 
pleasant interview ; and perhaps braver men than Frederick 
Falconer might have hesitated about facing the lady in the 
moment of her legitimate wrath. But it certainly was a cur’s 
trick to sneak off and leave her, as he did. But qiie voulefi-vom ? 
Figs vjonH grow on thistles. 

END OF PART XII. 


25—2 


388 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 




CHAPTER XXXVII. 

OP SLOWCOME AND SLIGO, AND MORE ESPECIALLY OP SLOWCOME. 

The business premises of Messieurs Slowcome and Sligo, 
occupied the ground-floor of one of the best houses in the best 
part of the High Street of Silverton. It was, and was well 
known by everybody who knew anything in Silverton, to be 
one of the best, most roomy, and most substantial houses in 
the old city. But it by no means asserted itself as such by its 
outward appearance. There was a Grammar School of very 
ancient foundation at Silverton — so ancient that it looked down 
on all the crowd of Edward the Fourth and Elizabeth’s foun- 
dations as mere mushroom growths — and the venerable and 
picturesque but very dingy and somewhat dilapidated looking 
collegiate buildings, stood in the High Street, withdrawing 
themselves with shy pride, as such old buildings often will, 
from the frontage line of the rest of the street, and shrinking 
backwards from the modern light, and the noise, and the traffic, 
some fifteen or eighteen feet to the rear, so as to leave a vacant 
space of that extent between the footpath of the modern street 
and the dark old Gothic frontage, the work of one of those 
centuries, which, inarticulate as they were in comparison to 
our own many- voiced times, yet contrived, somehow or other, 
to make the sermons, that their stones preached, very unmis- 
takable and eloquent ones. 

The old Grammar School had reason to be shy and retiring ; 
for the fact was, it had seen much better days. It had been 
richly endowed and wealthy in its time, with advowsons, and 
rent charges, and great tithes, and small tithes, and bits of fat 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


889 


land here and there all over the county. But things had gone 
very hard with the old College at the time of the Reformation. 

It had not been wholly and solely a school. A Chantry with 
a choral establishment had been comprised in the intentions of 
the founder — palpably superstitious uses, and flagrant in pro- 
portion to the amount of the wealth devoted to them — and the 
old College had been very mercilessly pruned by those to whom 
all such things were an abomination. There was still one 
endowed msistership, a piece of preferment in the gift of the 
Principal and Fellows of Silverton College, Oxford ; and there 
was one fellowship in the same College, to which no one save a 
scholar of the old school in the High Street was eligible. Of 
course the master’s son was duly sent up to Oxford to be 
endowed with this not severely contested fellowship, and, unless 
when the time came for appointing a new master to Silverton 
school he was already better provided for, the fellow so elected 
was usually sent back again to his native city in the character 
of master of the school. 

There was also a “High Bursar” of the College. I do not 
suppose that many persons in Silverton, with the exception of 
the local antiquaries and historians, ever heard of this dignitary. 
What or whether any functions were discharged by the High 
Bursar, or whether any profit or other advantage accrued to 
that ofiicer or to the “ Grammar School and Chantry of St. 
Walport de Weston prope Silverton” — as, despite all changes 
of manners and creeds, the old Foundation still delighted to 
style itself, whenever its feeble senile voice could find force to 
make itself heard at all — I am not aware. Nor do I at all 
know how, why, or by what authority, the High Bursar became 
such. But I do know, what few Silvertonians, I take it, did — 
that Silas Slowcome, Esq., was the High Bursar ; and I have 
been told that the memory of man in Silverton ran not to the 
contrary of the fact of a Slowcome occupying the same position. 
Nor do I know whether it was by virtue of the office so held, 
that the reigning Slowcome always dwelt in the substantial but 
dim-looking old house I have been speaking of above, which 
was next to the school, standing back from the street like it, 
and which, as the local guide books tell you, formerly con- 
stituted a part of the old foundation. I fancy that it was, and 
is, the property of the school still, and probably about the only 
property remaining to it ; and that the rent — not an excessive 
one probably — paid by the Messrs. Slowcome, with some 
addition, perhaps, from Silverton College, forms the main 


890 


tiINDISFARN CHASE. 


portion of the master’s money endowment. The whole 
obscure and theory of this High Bursarship is, however, an 
practice subject. I know that old Slow come always went 
accompanied by a clerk carrying an ancient-looking box, 
lettered ‘‘ Grammar School and Chantry of St. Walport de 
Weston prope Silverton,” into the old school-room on the 
morning of St. Walport’s day, that he remained there with the 
master for perhaps three minutes ; and that the master always 
dined with the High Bursar on the evening of that day. I 
know, too, that old Slowcome, who had a son a gentleman 
commoner, at Silverton College, used to go up to Oxford now 
and then ; and always dined at the High table in Hall when he 
did so. But this, beyond the fact of his inhabiting the old 
house by the side of the school buildings, is absolutely all I 
could ever learn about the connection between the High Bursar 
and the Walports. 

It is not to be supposed that the house as it at present exists 
is, though evidently older than its neighbours, by any means of 
the same date, as the picturesque Gothic building by its side. 
Ho doubt it was entirely changed and modernised, when it 
was diverted from its original uses to that of a family dwelling- 
house. And the building as it now is, dates probably from the 
beginning of the eighteenth or the close of the seventeenth 
century. It is very dingy-looking, especially on the ground 
floor ; on the upper floors Mrs. Sligo, who, much to her dis- 
content, is compelled to live there, takes care that all that paint 
and washing can do to brighten it up, shall not be neglected. 
The windows and door-posts, however, of the ground-floor in 
the front of the house are yellow with the effect of time. The 
great black hall door in the centre, between its heavy stone 
columns, stands open — like the gate of black His — at least 
during business hours, and admits aU who choose to enter into 
a large hall, closed on the opposite side by a modern glazed door, 
on which is a brass plate, bearing the names of Slowcome 
and Sligo. One large room to the right of this entrance 
is, or at least forty years ago was, occupied entirely by a vast 
quantity of boxes, some of wood and some of metal, with the 
names of most of the Sillshire aristocracy painted on them. 
There were heavy bars before the windows of this prison-like 
room, and other internal precautions both against fire and 
thieves. Another equally large room on the other side of the 
entrance was fitted up as a clerk’s office, and was tenanted by 
the younger members of the legal family. The principals of 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


391 


the firm, and the managing clerk, Mr. Benjamin Wyvill — (it is 
curious how, in small old-fashioned country towns, not much 
exposed to changes by emigration on immigration, the same 
names occur again and again in various strata of the body 
social) — the principals and Mr. Wyvill, I say, had their rooms 
at the much pleasanter and brighter-looking back of the 
house. 

The upper part of the building was inhabited, as has been 
mentioned, by the Sligos ; and was, in truth, a very much better 
residence than Mrs. Sligo could have hoped to enjoy elsewhere. 
Nevertheless, that lady, who was not of Sillshire birth, but 
who held rather a remarkable position in the Silverton world, 
and who was indeed herself a remarkable woman — though I 
fear I may hardly have an opportunity of making the reader 
acquainted with her in the course of this history — Mrs. Sligo, 
I say, was much discontented with the arrangement. The 
senior partner resided with his wife and family in an extremely 
pretty little villa residence just outside the town on the top of 
the high ground behind the Cathedral, looking towards the 
Lindisfarn woods. The firm had been Slowcome and Sligo for 
more than two generations ; the senior partner always main- 
taining his position in it. The present Mr. Slowcome was an 
old man, and the present Mr. Sligo a young one, who had 
inherited his late father’s share of the business. 

On that same day on which Frederick and Margaret were to 
have emancipated themselves, in the manner that has been 
described, from bondage to Mr. Slowcome’s parchments and 
papers, that gentleman was sitting as usual at his work in his 
warm and comfortable room at the back of the old house in the 
High Street. There he sat at his library table, thickly strewn 
with papers, very leisurely writing a letter. Whatever old 
Slowcome did, he did it leisurely. Whenever any old ac- 
quaintance came into his room, he would speak of the tre- 
mendous press of business, which made it impossible ever to 
get away from the office. And, in truth, he never did get away 
from the office, save on Sundays. There was no vacation time 
for him. He lived always in his office from ten o’clock in the 
morning till five in the evening, and often till a much later 
hour. For if anything chanced to detain him, his principles 
as to the duty of punctuality at his own dinner-table proved to 
be of the loosest description ; as Mrs. Slowcome was wont 
bitterly to complain. And yet when thus enlarging to any 
chance comer upon the grievous burthen of his work, and the 


392 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


insufficiency of the hours of the day for the doing of it, he 
would SjDend half-an-hour in chatting over the subject. He 
never seemed to be in a hurry, and though always behindhand, 
always kept plodding on with a slow steady sort of tortoise-like 
pertinacity, which, it must be supposed, did contrive to transact 
the business to be done somehow or other. For Slowcome 
and Sligo had the business of almost all the gentry of 
Sillshire in their hands, and the business did not come to 
grief, and none of their customers ever dreamed of leaving 
the old firm. 

On the contrary, old Slowcome was one of the most highly 
respected men in Sillshire. 

Nor was it at all true that Slowcome was a beast, as Frederick 
had protested to Margaret, in his indignation ; not at all. Old 
Slowcome was nearly seventy years old, and he was and had 
been all his life an attorney-at-law. It is true that he had a 
bald round head, with a pigtail, rather aggressive in its ex- 
pression, sticking horizontally out behind it, and a comfortable 
little round protuberance in front of him, from the apex of 
which dangled a somewhat exuberant gold watch chain with 
three or four extra sized seals appended to it, which swayed 
and swagged in a manner that perhaps rather too ostentatiously 
spoke of their owner being able to pay his way, and being 
beholden to no man ; true also, that the extraordinary ample 
frills of his shirt fronts, always exquisitely plaited, perked 
themselves up rather aggravatingly ; that his white waistcoat, 
black coat, ditto shorts, with their gold buckles at the knees, 
black silk stockings, irreproachably drawn over somewhat 
thick and short legs, and admirably blacked square-toed shoes, 
all carried with them a certain air of self-assertion ; true, 
moreover, that nobody ever suspected any past or present 
member of the firm of Slowcome or Sligo of wearing their 
hearts upon their sleeves ; and undeniably true, that if you 
asked Mr. Slowcome any question the answer to which you 
were waiting for with breathless suspense, he would always 
take a huge pinch of snuff, in the most leisurely manner before 
answering you. Still, all these things do not make a man 
utterly a beast. 

It may be admitted, perhaps, that old Slowcome, as observed 
in his little low-backed Windsor chair, in his office, was not apt 
to strike a student of mankind, visiting him there, as a genial, 
lovely, or large-hearted specimen of the genus homo ; that the 
specific differentiation was more obtrusively prominent than 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


393 


the generic characteristics, and the man was, in some degree, 
merged in the attorney. Yet in that pretty little suburban 
villa, up near the Castle Head, where the whole place, from the 
over-arched entrance gateway, all round the shrubberies, 
enclosing the exquisitely shaven lawn, to the porch of the 
elegant little dwelling, seemed to be one bower of roses, 
wherein a mother Slowcome and three blossoming daughters 
were nested ; there it may be that old Slowcome was recog- 
nised as human, and that the man re-asserted, for a few all too 
fleeting hours, his ascendancy over the attorney. It is possible 
to imagine, even, that the time may have been when he himself 
was impatient for the approaching day of his union with her 
who has been the presiding genius of Arcady Lodge for now 
more than forty years — possible that he, also, may, in his green 
and inexperienced youth, have cursed the law’s delay, and the 
tardiness of the drawers of draft settlements. There must 
have been memories. Daughters must exercise a humanizing 
influence even on an attorney-at-law ! He can talk to his sons 
of capiases, and such like, but he must come out from among 
these to hold converse with his daughters. Even if rating* 
them for permitting a garrison Captain to dangle after them 
in their progress up the High Street from the circulating library 
and flne art emporium of Mr. Glossable, to the workshop of 
little Miss Piper over the perfumer’s, he does not, I suppose, 
ask them, quo luarranto they so offended. Ho ! there must have 
been humanizing influences at Arcady Lodge. The mischief 
was that old Slowcome was there for so small a portion of his 
existence. And Mrs. Slowcome complained that he got worse 
and worse, in the matter of coming home too late for dinner. 
He seemed, literally, to have lost all perception of the lapse of 
time, and would go on prosing and boring, as if the minutes 
were not growing into hours the while. 

The dinner-hour at Arcady Lodge was half-past five; and 
Mr. Slowcome ought to have left his office at four. The great 
outer door was shut at that time ; and the junior clerk was 
punctual enough in performing that duty. But that did not get 
old Slow, as the young men in the office called him, out of his 
room. And people knew very well that he was, in all proba- 
bility, to be found there long after office hours ; and would 
come and knock at the door, to the infinite disgust of the smart 
young gent who had to open it, and who after having once 
replied, “After office hours,” as shortly, and sharply, as the 
appearance of the applicant made it safe for him to do, dared 


394 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


not answer in the negative to the reiterated demand, “ Is Mr. 
Slowcome now in the house ? 

It was just about the hour for shutting, on the day on which 
Frederick, as the reader knows, did not run off with Margaret 
Lindisfarn, that a person called at the office of Messrs. Slow- 
come and Sligo in the High Street. 

“ Mr. Sligo is in his room,” said the clerk, knowing very 
well that no visitor, be his errand what it might, would keep 
that gentleman at the office beyond the proper hour for shutting 
it, whereas he might likely enough detain old Slow, and conse- 
quently himself, the young gent in question — which was of much 
greater consequence — for the next three hours. Either of the 
elder clerks of Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo would probably 
have known the stranger by sight ; but the young gent, who 
had only recently been promoted to his stool, had never seen, 
him before, and could not make him out at all. 

He was a remarkably handsome, and yet not a prepossessing 
man, even to the not as yet perfectly developed and cultivated 
SBsthetic sentiments of young Bob Scott, the clerk in question. 
He was unusually tall, and slenderly made. But there was a 
something sinister in the expression of the handsome features, 
and repulsive in the swagger of self-assertion which had been 
generated by an habitual feeling of the need of it, and which 
produced its effects on Bob Scott, though he could not have 
explained as much in words. Then, the style of the stranger’s 
dress was objectionable to men and gods. A somewhat loudly 
smart style of toilette would not have offended the taste of the 
youthful Bob Scott. A grave propriety would have commanded 
his respect. Even consistent shabbiness, though it might have 
added some sharpness to the tone of Bob’s reply, would have 
failed to arouse the sentiment of suspicion and dislike with 
which he viewed the applicant for an interview with the head 
of the firm. A very threadbare pair of Oxford-mixture 
trousers, ending in still more dilapidated boots, clothed the 
lower part of his person, and might with propriety enough 
have formed the costume of some member of Bob Scott’s own 
profession at odds with fortune. But a green cut-away coat, 
much weather-stained, and a bright blue, exuberant, and very 
smart neck-handkerchief, seemed quite out of character with 
any such theory ; and a shallow-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, 
put on very much over one knowing-looking eye, seemed 
neither to belong to any of the walks of life to which the 
trousers and boots might be supposed to belong, nor to the 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


395 


^Miorsy’’ sporting* style of the man’s upper habiliments. In 
short, Bob Scott, could make nothing out of him, except that 
be was a very queer customer. 

I “Ifr. Slifjo is in his room ! ” said Bob. 

“ I said nothing about Mr. Sligo,” returned the stranger ; “ I 
asked if Mr. Slowcome was here. If not, I must go up to him 
at the Castle Head, that’s all.” 

“ Yes, Mr. Slowcome is in. I’ll ask him if he chooses to see 
you,” said Bob, sulkily, taking the stranger’s measure with a 
I stare that travelled all over him leisurely, without the least 
attempt to disguise itself. 

“ What are you going to ask him ? ” said the stranger. 

“Why, if he’ll see you, if that’s what you want,” said 
Bob. 

i “ See who, you blockhead ? ” 

“ Come, I say ! I’ll trouble you to speak civilly, whoever 
; you are ! ” remonstrated Bob, in very considerable indig- 
S nation. 

“ You don’t half know your business, young man. Go and 
tell old Slow that Mr. Jared Mallory, of Sillmouth, wants to 
speak to him on business of importance.” 

“ Mr. Jared Mallory, of Sillmouth ! ” repeated Bob ; “ Oh ; 
how was I to know ? ” 

So he left Mr. Mallory at the door, and in a minute came 
back to say that Mr. Slowcome would see him. 

The reader has already made the acquaintance of one Mr. 
Jared Mallory, but it will be seen at once that the man standing 
at the door of Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo’s office is not the 
same individual, was his son ; Mr. Jared Mallory, junior, 
attorney-at-law, of Sillmouth, was the son of old Jared Mallory, 
I the parish clerk at Chew ton, and the brother of Bab Mallory, 
“ the moorland wild- flower,” whom we last saw clambering up 
' the side of the Saucy Sally ^ to be received on that vessel’s deck 
. by Julian Lindisfarn, on his way back to France. 


396 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

A PAIR OF ATTORNEYS. 

Mr. Jared Mallory, of Sillmouth, attorney-at-law, had a 
practice there of a rather peculiar sort, not quite so profitable as 
it ought to have been in proportion to its extent, and in con- 
sideration of the not always agreeable nature of the business 
involved in it. Still it was a kind of business that suited the 
man. He was an attorney and so was Slowcome. But the 
lives and occupations of no two men could be more different ; 
and no amount of reward in cash, Arcady Villas, and respecta- 
bility, could have induced J ared Mallory to sit seven or eight 
hours in a snug warm office every day of his life. The nature 
of the population of Sillmouth, and the circumstance of the 
elder Mallory’s connection with one class of its inhabitants, 
will suffice to explain as far as needs be the general nature of 
the branch of business to which Mr. Mallory, junior, devoted 
himself. It was not a class of business which was in the 
ordinary nature of things calculated to make a man nice or 
scrupulous; nor was it at all of a nature likely to bring 
Mr. Mallory into contact with the members of that sleek:, 
prosperous, and eminently respectable firm, the Messieurs Slow- 
come and Sligo, of Silverton. So that the*Sillmouth attorney 
was very nearly, though not absolutely, a stranger to his com- 
peer of Silverton. 

“ Mr. Mallory, of Sillmouth, I believe,” said old Slowcome, 
half rising from his chair for an instant as his visitor entered, 
and then very deliberately putting his double gold eyeglass 
on his nose, and as leisurely looking him over from head to 
foot. 

“Yes, Mr. Slowcome. We have met before But you 

gentlemen in our old-fashioned little Sillshire metropolis here 
hold your heads so mighty high that” 

“Nevertheless, Mr. Mallory.” replied Mr. Slowcome very 
deliberately, and almost, we might say, sleepily, and pro- 
vokingly accepting and avowing, as a fact which admitted of 
no dispute, the Sillmouth attorney’s statement of the wide 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


397 


1 social space which separated them from each other ; ^^ne...ver 
I ...the... less Mis... ter Mal...lo...ry, I shall be very happy to 
give you my best at...ten...ti...on.’^ 

“ Not a doubt about that, Mr. Slowcome ! ” returned Mallory, 
nettled, and eyeing the respectable man with a glance of mali- 
I cious triumph ; not a shadow of a doubt or mistake about 
that, as soon as you shall have heard the nature of my 
business.” 

“And pray what may the nature of that business be... a... 

' Mis... ter Mallory?” said old Slow, with the most impertur- 
bable and aggravating composure, speaking the words with a 
' staccato sort of movement, as if some self-adjusting utterance 
' measurer were ticking them off and making them up into six- 
and-eightpenny worths. “You must excuse me if press of 
li business compels me to observe that my time is very precious,” 

I he continued, still speaking in the most leisurely manner, and 
throwing himself back in his chair, as he crossed one fat silk- 
covered calf over its brother’s knee, and pushed up his gold 
eyeglasses on his forehead, as if to peer out under them at his 
visitor. 

“ Oh, yes. Of course, of course. I’m in a deuce of a hurry 

myself; always am ; but duty to a client you know, Mr. 

Slowcome, and very important case delicate matter ; 

I you understand.” 

I “ Aye aye aye ! Mister Mallory. I daresay you have 

1 many cases of a hum de li cate description ; ” 

and old Slow nodded his chin, and his gold eye-glasses, and his 
i bald round head, up and down with the slow regular motion of 
the piston rod of a steam-engine. 

I “Not such as brings me here to-day though. Mis ter 

' Slow come,” said Mallory, winking at that outraged old 

1 gentleman. 

i “ I do not wish to be abrupt, nor to distress you more than is 

inevitable, in evitable I am sorry to say ; but I may 

i mention at once that my business is of a nature calculated to 
I be disagreeable to you.” 

I “Aye, aye, aye,” said old Slow, without a shadow of 

j variation in his tone or manner. “ And what may the disa- 
greeable business be, Mr. Mallory ? ” he added, nursing his leg 
with infinite complacency. 

j “ I believe your firm are solicitors to the Lindisfarns, Mr. 
i Slowcome ? ” 

i “ Any business matters touching Mr. Lindisfarn of Lindis- 


398 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


farn Chase, may with propriety be communicated to me^ Mr. 
Mallory ; and shall receive my best attention.’* 

“ If I am not misinformed, I may consider you as the legal 
friend of Dr. Lindisfarn of the Close also ? ” 

“ You may consider me as perfectly ready to hear anything 
which it may be useful for my good friend Dr. Lindisfarn, that 
I should hear,” said the old man with an appearance of perfect 
nonchalance, though in fact he was observing his visitor’s face 
all the time with the keenest scrutiny. 

“The Lindisfarn estates, magnificent property it is, Mr. 

Slowcome, were entailed, I believe, by the late Oliver Lin- 

disfarn, Esq., the father of the present possessor, on the issue 
male of his eldest son Oliver, and failing such issue, on the 
issue male of his younger son Theophilus ; failing such issue 
also, the daughters of the elder son become seised in tail. I 
believe I am correct in stating such to have been the disposi- 
tion ? ” said Mr. Mallory, pausing for a reply. 

“ Very possibly it may have been. I cannot pretend to carry 
all the dispositions ruling the descent of half the estates in 
Sillshire in my head, Mr. Mallory. It would be too much 
to expect, you know ; really altogether too much. And it 

would be very easy to look into the matter, if anybody 

authorised or justified in making the inquiry were to ask for 
information.” 

“Quite so, Mr. Slowcome, quite so. I admire caution, myself, 
Mr. Slowcome. There is nothing like it ! ” 

“Well, Sir?” 

“Well, Sir. Mr. Oliver Lindisfarn has no sons. He has 
two daughters. Dr. Theophilus Lindisfarn had a son, Julian, 
who under his grandfather’s will became heir in tail to the 
estates. I believe that even you, Mr. Slowcome, will have no 
difficulty in admitting the facts so far ? ” 

“Well, Sir?” 

“Julian Lindisfarn, the son of Dr. Lindisfarn, of the Close, 
some ten years or so ago left Silverton, under circumstances 
which it is not now necessary to speak of more particularly, 
and was understood to have afterwards died in America.” 

“Well, Sir?” 

“ The facts as I have stated them are of public notoriety. 
The heir in tail died ; the daughters of the elder brother 
became heiresses to the estates. Nothing clearer or more 
simple ! But what should you say, Mr. Slowcome, if I were 
to tell you that Julian Lindisfarn did not die in America ? 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


39D 


“ I am surprised, Mr. Mallory, that a gentleman of your 
: experience should put such a question to me ! ’’ said old Slow, 

I leaning his head on one side, and smiling pleasantly and tran- 
quilly at his visitor. “ Surely, it must occur to you,^’ he con- 
tinued, speaking very leisurely, “ that I should say nothing at 

all, not being called upon to do so not being called on, you 

see, Mr. Mallory.’^ 

“Well, Mr. Slowcome ; saij nothing at all. I don’t want 
; you to say anything. I give you the information, free, gratis, 

: for nothing. I tell you that Julian Lindisfarn did not die in 
I America. He was supposed to have been killed by the Indians. 

I He was nearly killed but not quite.” 

’ Mr. Slowcome bowed in return for this free, gratis com- 
; munication, but said nothing. 

I; “ Do you feel called upon, Mr. Slowcome, may I ask, to pay 
' any attention to the statement I have made ? ” 

II “ Well, really, Mr. Mallory, I cannot say that I do ; to speak 
I; quite frankly, I do not see that I am called on to pay any 
1 attention to it.” 

I It was by this time much too late for Mr. Slowcome, by any 
possibility, to reach Arcady Lodge, where Mrs. and the three 
) Misses Slowcome were discontentedly coming to the conclusion 
^ that they must sit down to table without papa again, in time 
for his dinner. But he did not on that account show the 
j slightest symptom of impatience or even accelerate his own 
I part of the interview, either in matter or manner, one jot. 

“ And yet,” pursued Mallory, “ the fact would be a somewhat 
important one to your clients at the Chase, and not less so to 
those in the Close.” 

“ That is perfectly true, Mr. Mallory ; the facts you speak of 
I would undoubtedly have important consequences, if authenti- 
cated if authenticated, you know, Mr. Mallory.” 

i “Oh, there will be no difficulty about that! authenti- 

cation enough, and to spare. Julian Lindisfarn was alive at 
Sillmouth, a few days ago.” 

“ If Julian Lindisfarn be really, as you state, alive, in spite 
of the very great improbability that he should have, during all 
this time, allowed his family to suppose him dead, and if he 
can prove his identity to the satisfaction of a jury, the young 
ladies at the Chase would consequently not be the heirs to the 
property.” 

“And what if I were further to tell you, Mr. Slowcome, that 
although Julian Lindisfarn was alive, and at Sillmouth, and I 


400 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


am in a position to prove these facts beyond the possibility of 

doubt or cavil what, I say, if I were further to tell you, 

that he is now dead ? ” 

“The latter statement would, I should imagine, so far 
diminish the importance of the former, as to make it hardly 
worth while inquiring whether it could be authenticated or not. 
The young ladies at Lindisfarn would be heiresses to the pro- 
perty, as they have always been supposed to be ; and it would 
apparently matter very little, at what precise date they became 
such,” said Slowcome, a little thrown off his guard by the pros- 
pect unexpectedly thus hung out to him for a moment, that 
after all there was no coming trouble to be feared. 

“ Now you must forgive me, Slowcome, if I say that I am 
astonished that you, of all men in the world, should jump at a 
conclusion in that way ! If it had been the young gent who 

opened the door of your office to me just now But, really, 

for a gentleman of your experience ” 

“ May I ask what is the conclusion I have jumped at. Mister 
Mallory ? ” said old Slow, as placidly as ever, but with a very 
marked emphasis on the “Mister,” intended to rebuke the 
Sillmouth attorney for venturing to address him as “ Slow- 
come. ” 

Mr. Mallory perceived and perfectly well understood the 
hint. “Yery good,” thought he to himself; “it is all very 
well, Mr. Slowcome ; but we’ll come a little nearer to a level, 
perhaps, before I have done.” 

“ Why, you have jumped at this conclusion, Mr. Slow- 
come,” said he, in reply to the old gentleman’s last words ; 
“ thaf: if Julian Lindisfarn died a short time since, it puts 
matters into the same position as if he had died years ago. 
Suppose he has left heirs ? How about that, Mr. Slow- 
come ? ” 

“ It is true that for the moment I had lost sight of that con- 
tingency. But really, Mr. Mallory, this mere gossip, though 
exceedingly agreeable, I am sure, as gossip, is so unimportant 
in any more serious point of view, that anyone may well be ex- 
cused for not bringing one’s legal wits to bear upon it. No 
doubt, again, if Julian Lindisfarn has left an heir male, legiti- 
mate or capable of being indisputably authenticated as such, 
that heir would inherit the Lindisfarn property.” 

“ The fact is, Mr. Slowcome, though I could not refrain from 
being down upon you for making such an oversight, it would 
have come to the same thing whether Julian Lindisfarn had 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


401 


died in America years ago, or when he did. He has left a son 
born before he left this country for America.^’ 

“ A s'on born in wedlock, Mr. Mallory ? 

“ Of course. I should not be here to give you and myself 
trouble by talking of an illegitimate child.” 

“ m I to understand, then, that you come to me, Mr. Mal- 
lory, as the legal representative of the child in question, and 
that you are prepared to put forward a claim to the Lindisfarn 
property on his behalf ? ” 

“ You could not have stated the case more accurately, Mr. 
Slow come, if you had tried for an hour! That is exactly it. 
I come to make, and in due course to establish, the claim of 
Julian Lindisfarn, an infant, son of Julian Lindisfarn, formerly 
of the Close in Silverton, and of Barbara Mallory, his lawful 
wife, to be declared heir at law to the lands and hereditaments 
of Lindisfarn.” 

“ Son of Julian Lindisfarn and of Barbara Mallory, you say, 
Mr. Mallory. Any relative, may I ask ? ” said Slowcome, in 
the most indifferent manner in the world, but shooting a sharp 
glance at the provincial lawyer from under his eyebrows as he 
spoke. 

“ Yes ; Barbara Lindisfarn, formerly Barbara Mallory, the 
widow of the late, and mother of the present heir to the pro- 
perty, is my sister. But as that fact is wholly unessential to 
the matter in hand, I did not think it necessary to trouble you 
with it.” 

“ Nay, it is one of the many facts that may perhaps — may, 
you know — be felt to have a bearing in the case, when it goes 
before a jury. Miss Mallory, your sister, was a native of 
Chew ton in the Moor, if I mistake not ? ” 

‘‘ Yes, she was ; though I do not see what that has to do 
ith the matter in hand, any more than her being my sister has.” 

“ Not at all, not at all I Only it seems to me as if I could 
remember having heard something years ago about that unfor- 
tunate young man in connection with Chewton in the Moor. 
Yes, surely, surely, it was at Chewton in tlie Moor 1 ” 

“ It was at Chewton in the' Moor that Julian Lindisfarn met 

with Barbara Mallory, if you mean that at Chewton in the 

Mooe that he was married to her, and at Chewton in the Moor 
that his son was born.” 

“ Ay, ay, ay, ay ! Born subsequently to the marriage, of 
course ? ” said old Slow, with a very shrewd look out of the 
corner of his eye at the other. 

26 


402 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Subsequently to the marriage ! Of course. Why, what 
the devil do you mean to insinuate, Mr. Slowcome ? ” 1 

“ I insinuate ! Oh dear me, I never insinuated anything in | 
my life ! When I don’t make a statement, I ask a question. 

I only mean to ask a question, for information’s sake, you 
know.” 

“All right, Mr. Slowcome; and I am happy to be able to 
give you the information you wish, Yes, the child Julian i 
Lindisfarn was born in due time and season, so as to entitle 
him as fully to the name as he is entitled to the est^es of | 
Lindisfarn.” * 

“ And now Julian Lindisfarn, the father, is truly and certainly I 
dead, at last, you say, Mr. Mallory.” I 

“ Yes ; he died on the night of the twentieth of this month, | 
at sea ; and his death can be -proved by several eye-witnesses 
of it.” 

“ Have you any objection to say under what circumstances it 
took place ? ” 

“ None in the world, my dear Sir, not the least in the world ; 
if the press of business, and the value of your precious time, 
which you were speaking of just now, will allow you leisure to 
listen to such matters.” 

“ Well, I can mostly find time for doing what has to be done, 
Mr. Mallory. 1 am naturally interested, you know, in the 
fate of that poor young man, whom I can remember as hand- 
some a lad as I ever saw. His father is an old and valued 
friend of mine. And then you know we are not engaged in 
business — mere gossip — mere idle chat, you know. Of course, 
when we come to talk of these things in earnest, we must look 
into documents — do...cu...ments, Mr. Mallory — which alone are 
of any avail in such matters. And how did the poor young 
man come to his death ? On the twentieth — dear me ! Only 
the other day.” 

“ Only the other day, Mr. Slowcome. Ay ! we are here 
to-day and gone to-morrow, as the saying is. And that was 
specially his case, poor fellow, as one may say. For he was, 
as I told you, at Sillmouth ; and it seems had been ill, or 
wounded in some fray, or something of the kind, and so had 
been prevented from returning to France, whence, as I am 
given to understand, he had come. I have not troubled myself 
to obtain any accurate information upon all these points, seeing 
that they do not in any way bear on the important facts of the 
matter, What is certain is, that the unfortunate young man 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


403 


engaged a passage for himself, his wife, and child, by a vessel 
called the Saucy Sally, of which one Hiram Pendleton was 
master and owner ; that he sailed in her on the evening of the 
twentieth, in company with Mrs. Lindisfarn and their child ; 
and that when off the coast of Prance on that night — or rather 
on the following morning — it being very dark and foggy at the 
time, the Saucy Sally was run down by a larger vessel, the 
Deux Maries, of Dunkirk, in which accident the passenger, 
Julian Lindisfarn, as well as two others of the crew, perished. 
The body of one of the two sailors and that of Mr. Lindisfarn 
were recovered, and identified ; of which due certificates and 
vouchers can be furnished by the French authorities ; so that 
there is no doubt of his being dead this time beyond the possi- 
bility of a mistake.’^ 

“ And the lady who was with him, and the child ? ” asked 
Mr. Slowcome, who had listened to the above statement with 
more evident attention and interest than he had previously 
condescended to bestow upon Mr. Mallory’s communications. 

“ The mother and the child were both saved by the exer- 
tions of Hiram Pendleton, the owner and skipper of the 
unlucky craft. He succeeded in placing both of them on the 
deck of the French vessel, and subsequently in saving himself 
in the same manner ; though it seems by all accounts to have 
been touch and go with him.” 

‘‘ Hiram Pendleton ; ay, ay, ay, ay ! So it was Hiram 
Pendleton who saved the mother and child ? ” said old Slow, 
musingly. 

“Yes, indeed; and at great risk of his own life too, so it 
would seem.” 

“ And lost his vessel ; dear, dear, dear ! ” rejoined Slowcome, 
still musing. 

‘‘Yes, saved his passengers, and lost his ship. I suppose 
the loss will make Hiram Pendleton something like a ruined 
man.” 

“ I have heard, I think, that he and the king’s revenue offi- 
cers were sometimes apt to differ in their views of things in 
general.” 

“ Maybe so, Mr. Slowcome. I don’t know much of him, and 
nothing of his affairs.” 

“Ho, no, of course not. It is not likely you should. How 
should you, Mr. Mallory ? But now, as to this extraordinary, 
and really very interesting story, which you have been telling 
me, perhaps it would suit you to mention when the do.,.cu.,^ 
26—2 


404 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


merits will be forthcoming*. Of course without seeing the 
do...cu...ments I should not be justified in giving the matter 
any serious attention at all.’^ 

“ Well, Mr. Slowcome, as far as satisfying you that you 
w uld not be justified in omitting’ to give the matter your most 
serious and immediate attention, and to lay the circumstances 
at once before your clients — as far as that goes, I think I may 
be able to do that before we bring this sitting to a conclusion. 
Allow me to call your attention. Sir, to these two documents, 
copies, you will observe ; I do not carry the originals about in 
my pocket, as you will easily understand ; but they can and 
will be produced in due time and place ; ’’ and the Sillmouth 
attorney drew from the breast pocket of his very unprofes- 
sional-looking cut-away green coat a pocket-book, from which 
he selected, from among several other papers, two small strips. 

The first,” continued he, with glib satisfaction, ‘‘is, you will 
observe, a copy of the marriage certificate of Barbara Mallory 
with Julian Lindisfarn, Esquire, duly extracted from the register 
of Chewton Church, by the Bev. Charles Mellish, who per- 
formed the ceremony, and attested under his hand.” 

“ Ay, ay, ay, ay ! I see, yes. The paper seems to be what 
you state ; and the other ? ” 

“The other is a copy of certain affidavits duly made and 
attested, sworn by the medical man and nurse, who attended 
Mrs. Lindisfarn in her confinement, serving to remove any 
doubt which might arise respecting the date of the child’s 
birth.” 

“ Would it not be simpler and more satisfactory to produce 
the baptismal register ? ” said Mr. Slowcome, while closely 
examining the papers submitted to him. 

“ Simpler, certainly, it would be,” returned Mr. Mallory ; 
*‘ but I do not see that it would be at all more satisfactory. 
But, the fact is, we have been driven to this mode of proof by 
the mpossibility of finding any register at Chewton.” 

“ Ay, indeed ! impossibility of finding any register at Chew- 
ton ? ” rejoined old Slow, with the same appearance of almost 
careless indifference which he had hitherto maintained; but 
with a shrewd gleam of awakened interest in his eye, which did 
no t escape the practised observation of his sharp companion ; 

May I ask if the other document has been confronted with 
the original record in the register ? ” 

“ No such register can be found at Chewton, Mr. Slowcome,” 
returned Mallory. “No doubt the loss of the baptismal 


LINDISFAEN CHASIl. 


405 


register, and that of the marriage register, is the loss of one 
; and the same volume. When old Mellish, the late curate, died, 

' about eight years ago, no register could be found. I don’t 
know whether you are at all aware, Mr. Slowcome, what sort 
of person Mr. Mellish was — the strangest creature ; — about as 
much like one of your respectable city clergy here as a tame 
pigeon in one of your town dovecots is like a wood-pigeon. 
He had lived all alone there out in the Moor, without wife or 
child, all his life, till he was as wild as the wildest of the Moor 
folk. Things went on in a queer way in his parish. If the 
^ Saturday night’s carouse went too far into the small hours of 
the Sunday morning, the inhabitants were not so unreasonable 
as to expect any morning service, and waited very patiently 
till the Sunday afternoon ; and then my father — my father was 
■ and still is clerk of Chewton, Mr. Slowcome — my father used 
to go and see what condition the parson was in, before he rang 
the bell. Oh, it was a queer place, was Chewton in the Moor, 
in old Mellish’s time ! It was thought that he had probably 
kept the registers at his own residence, and every search was 
made, but all to no purpose. Births and marriages don’t take 
place in that small population — only a few hundreds, Mr. Slow- 
come ! — so often as to cause the register to be very constantly 
needed, you know.” 

“ Ay, ay, ay ! a very remarkable state of things. And your 
good father was parish clerk during the curacy of this exem- 
plary gentleman, Mr. Mallory? ” 

“ He was, Mr. Slowcome ; and has been so, and is so still, 
under his successor, a very different sort of man. If matters 
did not go on worse than they did in old Mellish’s days it was 
mainly due to my father, who was far more fitted to be the 
parson in every respect, than the drunken old curate, though I 
say it who should not, Mr. Slowcome.” 

“ Nay, nay ! I do not see any reason why you should not say 
so, since such was the case. But I suppose that even at Chew- 
ton it was the custom for a marriage to be solemnised before 
witnesses, Mr. Mallory ? ” 

“Well, I should not wonder if that was very much as it 
happened. With a parson who saw double, one witness would 

easily do for two, you know; he, he, he! But, however, 

there were two witnesses to my sister’s marriage, as you will 
see by reference to the copy before you. My father took care 
that it was all right in her case, you may swear.” 

“Ay, ay, ay I I see, I see — ‘James Marfcinscombe, of the 


406 


tilNBISFARN CHASE. 


Back Lane, Sillmouth;’ and ‘Benjamin Brandreth, oi Chew 
Havens’ These witnesses, I suppose, will be forthcoming at 
need, Mr. Mallory ? ” 

“ Martinscombe will not, certainly, poor fellow. He was a 
friend of mine, Mr. Slowcome, and is since dead. Of Brandreth 
we have not been able to hear anything. He was a shipowner 
and master, of Chew Haven ; and, I believe, a friend of my 
father’s. He sailed, it seems, from Chew Haven some five or 
six years ago, and has not been heard of since.” 

“ Dear me ! What, neither he, nor his ship, nor any of 
his crew ? Are the shipowners of Chew Haven (I don’t 
know what sort of place it is) apt to disappear in that 
way ? ” 

“ Chew Haven is a poor little place enough — just a little bit 
of a fishing village, at the mouth of the creek that runs down 
off the Moor past Chewton. And, I take it, the fact was, that 
Brandreth was in reduced circumstances. I don’t know that it 
was on a vessel of his own when he left Chew Haven and came 
back no more. Ho. It would have been satisfactory to find 
the witnesses, no doubt. But witnesses won’t live for ever, no 
more than other men. And failing the living men, I need not 
tell you, Mr. Slowcome, that their signature to the register 
is as good evidence as if they were to rise from the grave to 
speak it.” 

“ Ho doubt, no doubt, Mr. Mallory. But we have not got 

their signature to the register — only the parson’s copy of it 

and I have seen only the copy of that, you know.” 

“ The curate’s extract from the register, duly made, signed, 
and certified in proper form, will be forthcoming in due time, 
Mr. Slowcome, and that is undeniable evidence, as you are well 
aware. Old Mellish’s handwriting was a very peculiar one ; 
and abundant evidence may be got as to that point.” 

“Well, Mr. Mallory,” said Slowcome, suddenly, after a short 
pause, during which he had all the appearance of being on 
the point of dropping off to sleep, but was, in fact, deeply 
meditating the points of the statement that had been made to 
him. “Well, Mr. Mallory, of course I can say nothing to all 
this. You allege a marriage between the late Julian Lindis- 
farn, recently deceased, under such painful circumstances, and 
your sister. Miss Barbara Mallory. Of course, every part of 
the evidence of such a statement must be expected to be sub- 
jected to the severest possible scrutiny — of course, you are as 
much aware of that, as I can be. Of course, we say nothing. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


407 


You will take such steps as seem good to you ; and in the 
meantime, I am much obliged to you for favouring me with 
I this visit. Good morning, Mr, Mallory.” 

‘‘ Good morning, Mr. Slowcome. Of course, it would be 
most agreeable and best for all the parties concerned, if such a 
family alSair could be settled quietly and amicably — of course 
it would. But we are ready for war or peace, whichever your 
clients may decide.” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Mallory ; of course, in reply to any such 
observation I can say nothing — absolutely nothing, upon the 
present occasion. Your statement shall receive all considera- 
tion, and the family will decide on the course to be pursued. 
Good morning, Mr. Mallory.” 

And so the Sillmouth attorney bowed himself out, to the 
j infinite relief of Mr. Bob Scott, who had begun to think 
I that if Slowcome and Sligo intended to keep their ofiice 
I open day and night, he had better look out for another service. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

MR. FALCONER IS ALARMED. 

When his visitor was gone, Mr. Slowcome sat still in his 
Windsor chair, apparently in deep meditation, so long, that the 
hardly used Bob Scott really began to give it up as a bad job, 
for that night at least. At last, however, he heard the old 
gentleman get up from his chair, and proceed to put on his 
great coat. So he came out of the dingy prison-like office, in 
which he was condemned to pass his days, and which- he had 
already made utterly dark, by putting up the shutters, so that 
he might lose no time in being off home when at last old Slow 
should think fit to bring his day’s work to an end, and stood 
by the side of the hall door, ready to let his master out, and to 
follow him as soon as he had gone half-a-dozen steps from the 
door. 


m 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


But just as Mr. Slowcome at last appeared at the door of 
his room, leisurely buttoning* up his great coat, as he came out 
into the hall, Mr. Bob Scott was startled by another sharp rap 
at the door close to him. Springing to open it, with the hope 
of getting rid of the applicant before old Slow should catch 
sight of him, he found himself in the worshipful presence of 
Mr. Falconer, the banker. 

Bob Scott’s face fell, and the sharp, angry “After office 
hours ! ” to be accompanied by a slamming- to of the door in 
the new-comer’s face, died away upon his lips. 

“ Is Mr. Slowcome within ? ” said the banker. 

“ Yes, Sir, lie^s within,” said Bob, with a deep sigh ; “ but I 
think. Sir, he has put his great coat on to go. It’s long past 
office hours, you know. Sir. But we don’t count hours here. 
Oh dear no, nothing of the kind ! ” 

“ Well, ask Mr. Slowcome if he will allow me to speak to 
him, for just one minute; I won’t keep him a minute.” 

“Just one minute,” Bob muttered to himself, as he turned 
away to execute the banker’s behest; “just one minute ! As 
if old Slow could say, ‘ How do you do ? ’ under five minutes. 
It takes him that to open his blessed old easy-going mouth.” 

“Walk in, please Sir. Mr. Slowcome has got his great 
coat on. Sir ; but he’ll be happy to see you,” added the 
despondent youth, returning into the hall. 

“ Only one word, my dear Slowcome, one word ! Ho, I 
won’t sit down, thank you, I only just looked in to ask you 
how we were getting on? The young folks are growing 
desperately imp afient . ’ ’ 

“ Ay, ay, ay ! I suppose so, I suppose so. Well, we were all 
young once. But, Mr. Falconer,” and old Slow deliberately 
stepped across the room and closed the door, which the banker, 
meaning only to say one hurried word, had not shut behind 
him; “lam very glad you happened to look in; for I have 
just this instant had a very strange visit, which may very 

possibly, possibly, I say cause some little delay in this 

matter to a satisfactory conclusion.” 

“ Delay ! ” replied the banker, evidently ill at ease ; “ why 
there is nothing wrong, I hope nothing ? ” 

“ Well ! that we shall see, I hope not, I sincerely hope not ; 
but ” 

“ For Heaven’s sake, my dear Sir, what is it ? Pray speak 
out.” 

“Well, yes, to you. Falconer; but it is a delicate matter. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


409 


However, in your position Lindisfarn settles, you know, 

half the property on Miss Margaret.” 

“ Yes, a very proper settlement, surely ? ” 

“ Oh, very, very, if. he have the power to make it ! ” 

said the old lawyer, dropping his words out, one after the 
other, like the ominous drop, drop, of heavy blood-drops on a 
pavement. 

‘‘ Power to make it Lindisfarn ? And you have just had 

a strange visit ? What is it ? What difficulty or doubt can 
there be ? 

“ I suppose you know the history of the entail of the 
property ? Male heir of Oliver, eldest son ; failure of male 
' issue there, male heir of Theophilus, younger son ; failing 
! male issue there, return to female children of eldest brother.” 

“ Yes, yes, of course ! I know all that ; all the country 
knows it.” 

“Just so, just so. You, no doubt, know also the circum- 
stances under which Dr. Theophilus Lindisfarn, having had a 
son, became childless, in consequence of which event the 
estates reverted to the daughters of the elder brother ? ” 

“To be sure I do; nobody better. I remember all the 
circumstances as well as if they had happened yesterday. I 
have reason to, by George. But the poor fellow died ; and 

there is an end of that killed in America by the savages. 

A great mercy, too, for all parties concerned, between you and 
j me, Mr. Slowcome. Quite a providential arrangement !” 

j “ Oh ! quite so if it had been carried out. But what if 

Providence neglected that means of making all snug and 
comfortable. Suppose the story of the murder by the Indians 
was all false 

I “What! you don’t mean to say ” stammered the 

I banker, turning pale. 

I “Yes, I do; just so, just that,” said old Slow, making a 
balancing piston-rod of his chin and pigtail ; “ at least,” he 
1 added, “ that is what I have been told by a man who left this 
office not two minutes before you entered it.” 

“ Good Heavens 1 That man alive still 1 And the result, 
therefore, is, that the Misses Lindisfarn have no longer any 
;| claim to be their father’s heirs ? ” 

I “Precisely so, Mr. Falconer. That is the very lamentable 
I and unfortunate state of the case.” 

“ But if Julian Lindisfarn were a convicted felon, Mr. 
Slowcome?” 


410 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


But he was not a convicted felon, Mr. Falconer ; no 
proceedings were ever taken against him.’’ . 

“ But it is not too late to do so,” cried the old banker 
eagerly, with an excited gleam in his eye. 

Old Slow shook his head gently, and a quiet smile came 
over his face, as he answered : 

“ Won’t do, Mr. Falconer. There’s no hope of disposing of 
the difficulty in that way.” 

“Why? If he. comes forward to make any claim ” 

said the other eagerly. 

“ You might put salt on his tail ; but he has beat us, Mr. 
Falconer. He is dead now ; though he did not die in 
America.” 

“ But then if I understand the matter at all, Slowcome, 

the girls become the heiresses after all.” 

“ You are in such a hurry. Falconer. One is sure to run 
one’s head into some mistake, when one suffers oneself to be 
hurried. That is why I never do. If Julian Lindisfarn had 
died without legitimate issue, it would have been as you state ; 
but that, as I am told, is not the case. The object of the man 
who was here just now, was to set up a claim on behalf of a 
son of Julian Lindisfarn.” 

“And such a son would inherit to the ousting of Mr. 
Lindisfarn’s daughters?” 

“Unquestionably he would, there can be no doubt about 
that at all,” said Slowcome, raising his head and looking 
point blank into his companion’s face. 

“And this statement — or rather all these statements, Mr. 
Slowcome — did they come to you, may I ask, from a trust- 
worthy som’ce from such a source, as would lead you to 

put faith in them ?” 

“ Ah ! there we come to the marrow of the question. The 
gentleman who was kind enough to communicate these facts to 
me, is not a person on whose unsupported state- 

ment I should be disposed to place implicit reliance. But 
neither is he one who would for a moment suppose that his 
statement could be of any avail. Ho, he has got his proofs — 
his documents.” 

“You think then ” said Falconer, cursing in his heart 

old Slow’s dilatory and tantalizing mode of dribbling out the 
contents of his mind. 

“I think, Mr. Falconer, for to you I have no objection 
whatsoever to give — not my opinion, mind; for I cannot be 


LINBISFAKN CHASE. 


411 


expected to have had either the time or the means to form an 
I opinion upon the case as yet ; but my impressions, my merely 
' primd facie impressions — though you will of course understand 
that I Said no word to my informant, which could lead him to 
infer that I either believed or disbelieved any portion of his 

statement, my impression is, that it is true that Julian 

Lindisfarn did not die years ago in America, but that he did 
die, as stated, the other day at sea off the neighbouring coast 
of France. I am further disposed to believe that he i;eally 
did leave a son behind him, who is now to be put forward as 
the heir at law to the property.” 

“ It is all uj) then,” cried the banker, throwing up his hands 
as he spoke. 

“ You are in such a hurry. Falconer ! You are making a 
! most prodigious jump to a conclusion, and a wholly unwarrant- 
able one. I believe, as I say, that Julian Lindisfarn left a son. 
I Did he leave a legitimate son ? ” said the lawyer, dropping the 
words like minute guns, and aiming a poke with his forefinger 
: at the third button of the banker’s waistcoat, as he finished 
them ; “ that is the question. That is the only direction, to 
speak the plain fact frankly, as between you and me, in which 
I I see any loophole — any hope.” 

“ But the child is stated to be legitimate.” 

Stated ! of course he is stated to be legitimate. What is 
. the use of statements. They have more than that. The copy 
i of a document professing to be an extract from the marriage 
: register, duly made and signed by the clergyman, and attesting 
i the marriage of Julian Lindisfarn and Barbara Mallory, was 
j shown to me.” 

1 “ Barbara Mallory ! ” 

“And I have no doubt but that the original of that 
document will be forthcoming. Also I have seen the copies 
of affidavits proving the birth of the child at a due and 
proper period after the marriage. And I have little doubt but 
, that the date of the child’s birth can be substantiated.” 

“Well then, where on earth do you see any loophole of 
hope, I should like to know ? ” 

“Well, Mr. Falconer, it must have occurred to your ex- 
perience to discover that every document is not always exactly 
what it professes to be in every respect. I do not know. I 
cannot say anything. But there are certain circumstances, 
that I think I may call ahem ! suspicious, in the state- 

ment which was made to me. The register, from which the 


412 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


extract certifying the marriage professes to have been taken, 
is stated to be lost. It may be so ; many registers have been 
lost before now. Of course we shall leave no stone unturned 
to see whether any hole can be picked in the case put forward. 
Strict search must be made for this missing register. The 
father of the woman said to have been married to young 
Lindisfarn is, and has for many years been, parish clerk of the 
village where the marriage was celebrated — a rather ugly and 
suggestive fact.” 

“Mallory, Mallory — why, that is the name of the old clerk 
at Chewton in the Moor, Dr. Lindisfarn’s parish ! ” 

“ Just so ; and the person who was with me just now, and 
who is getting up this case, is a son of the old man, and 
brother of the so-called Mrs. Lindisfarn, an attorney — of no 
very good repute, between ourselves — at Sillmouth. He tells 
me a great deal — most of which I knew very well before he 
was born — of the careless and unclerical habits of old Mellish, 
the late curate at Chewton, which is put forward to account for 
the loss of the register. If that register could only be 
found ” 

“ Please, Sir, it only wants a quarter to six ! ” said Bob 
Scott, opening the door of his master’s room, and making this 
announcement in the utter desperation of his heart. 

“ Good Heavens ! so late ? ” exclaimed Falconer, turning as 
white as a sheet. 

“ Oh, it is no matter,” said old Slow, as placidly as possible ; 
“ there is no hurry ; there is time enough for all things ! ” 

“ I beg pardon, my dear Sir. Not another second for the 
world. A thousand pardons ! ” 

And to old Slow’s no little surprise and perplexity, but to 
Bob Scott’s infinite delight, the banker brushed off in the 
greatest possible hurry, and almost ran up that short portion 
of the High Street which intervened between the office of 
Slowcome and Sligo, and the lane which led from it into that 
part of the Close in which his own residence was situated. 

Only a few minutes to six ; Good Heavens ! and in another 
ten minutes his son would be speeding, as fast as post-horses 
could carry him, towards Gretna, to join himself indissolubly 
to a girl not worth a penny. Heavens and earth, what a 
merciful escape ! If indeed there be yet time to stop him. 

“ Gregory, Gregory ! ” cried Mr. Falconer, bursting into the 
private parlour at the bank, where he knew that the old clerk 
was fortunately still engaged with his books, and throwing 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


413 


himself panting on a chair, as he spoke ; Gregory ! Mr. 
Frederick is going to run off with Miss Lindisfarn from the 
door in the wall of her uncle’s garden in Castle Head Lane, at 
six this evening. It only wants a few minutes. Hun for 
your Kfe, and stop him ; at all hazards, mind you ! Cling to 
Mm if necessary. Tell him you come from me ; and bring 
him here to me. Mind now, everything depends on your being’ 
there in time, and preventing his starting. Off with you ! ” 
And that is why and how the elopement did not take place, 
and Margaret was betrayed in the shameful manner that has 
been related. 


I 


CHAPTER XU 

THE TroiNGS REACH THE CHASE. 

“Merciful Heaven ! ” thought the panting banker to himself, 
as he sat, exhausted with the unwonted exertion he had made, 
in the chair into which he had thrown himself while speaking 
to Greatorex, “ what an escape, what a marvellously providential 
escape ! If only Gregory Greatorex is in time. But yes, yes, 
there is time, there is time. To think that if that young 
scamp of a clerk had not got tired of waiting, and put his 
head into the room to say that it was near six o’clock, I should 
have let the precious moments slip to a certainty. They would 
have been off, and Fred would have married a beggar. ’Twas 
a mere chance, too, my looking in at Slowcome’s as I went 
down the High Street, a mere chance. How thankful we 
ought to be to a mercifully overruling Providence ! A beggar, 
— yes, those poor Lindisfarn girls are no better — evidently no 
better. It is all very well for Slowcome to make the best of 
it, and talk about a loophole, and a hope. Of course it is his 
business and his duty to do so. Of course a fight on the 
subject will suit his book ; but it is as plain as a pikestaff’ that 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


4 ] 4 

they have not a chance, and that is Slowcome’s opinion too. 
A most wonderful dispensation, truly. There goes six 
o’clock ! ” cried Mr. Falconer, jumping from his chair, and 
going nervously to the window of the room, “Heaven grant 
that Gregory may have been in time, and that Fred has listened 

to reason ! Oh, yes, he never would ! But I should bf 

very thankful to have him safe here.” 

And the old gentleman, with his hands plunged into the 
pockets of his superfine black shorts, kept nervously moving 
from the window to the fireplace, and from the fireplace to the 
window, looking at his watch every minute. 

“ Thank goodness you are here, my dear boy ! ” he exclaimed, 
as Frederick entered the room at last, seizing him by the hand, 
and shaking it again and again ; “ Thank God you are here ! 
Greatorex has done it like a faithful servant ; “ I will not forget 
him. My boy, what an escape we have had ! ” 

“ But will you have the kindness to explain the meaning of 

all this. Sir ? You first tell me ” 

“Yes, yes, I know, I know. But, my dear boy, such an 
extraordinary circumstance. You shall hear. There was only 
just time, barely time to stop you. A minute or two more, 

and you would have been off, and ” the banker finished his 

phrase in dumb show, by throwing up his eyes, hands, chin, 
and nether-lip, to heaven — or at least towards the ceiling of 
the bank parlour. 

“But I’ll be shot if I can make out head or tail in the 
matter,” cried his son. 

“ Have a moment’s patience till I can tell you,” remonstrated 
the senior. 

“ You yourself put me up to going off with the girl, and then, 

at the last moment Do you consider. Sir, that you have 

made me behave very ill to Miss Lindisfarn ? ” 

“ My dear Fred, let her alone, let her alone. Thank Heaven 
you have no need to trouble yourself any further about 
her ! ” 

“To think of her, poor little darling, waiting and waiting 
there, at that garden door.” 

“ My dear boy she has not a penny.” 

“ Getting into a scrape with her Aunt, most likely ” 

“ I tell you, Fred, she is a beggar ! ” 

“ Catching her death of cold in that damp garden ” 

“Don’t I tell you she has not a sixpence in the world? 
Do you hear? Do you understand what I say? Not a 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


415 


i sixpence ! And I have been mercifully permitted to become 
I cognizant of the truth in the most extraordinary manner, just 

! in time barely in time to save you from marrying yourself 

: to a beggar. Ten minutes more, and you would have been off; 

: and nothing could have saved you.” 

“ But what on earth is the meaning of all this ? Will you 
have the kindness to explain to me what has happened, or 
what you have heard ? ” 

“ Sit down then, Frederick, sit down quietly, and you shall 
hear all. I am so shaken still with the surprise, and my 
anxiety about you, and the run I had, that I am all of a tremor, 
i But once again, thank God, all is safe ! Think of my stepping 
by chance — quite by chance — into Slowcome and Sligo’s, as I 
I was walking down the street — thinking of the job you were 
li after, you dog ! — just to ask whether they were getting on 
I with the settlements. I do not know what prompted me to go 
I in. But it is a wonderful instance how a merciful Providence 
: overrules our actions. I think it must have been a feeling that 
i it would be just as well for me to show in that way that I knew 
I nothing about the elopement, you know. So I just stepped in; 
and Slowcome told me the news.” 

“ What news, in Heaven’s name ? ” 

“ Do be patient a moment, Frederick ! Am I not telling you ? 

I ^ Settlements ! ’ said Slowcome ; ‘ It will be well if Lindisfarn 
is ever able to make any settlement at all on his girls ; ’ or 
something to that effect. And then he told me that he had just 
had a man with him, who had made a formal claim on the 
j inheritance on behalf of a son of Julian Lindisfarn, who, the 
I man said, had not died in America long ago, as supposed, but 
i quite recently in this immediate neighbourhood.” 

' ‘‘A son of Julian Lindisfarn ! ” 

I “ Yes ; a son by a certain Miss Mallory out at Chewton in 
the Moor, his father’s living, you know.” 

’ “What, a legitimate son ? ” asked Frederick, eagerly. 

I “ Yes ; it would seem so ; a son born in wedlock, of Julian 
1 Lindisfarn and his wife, Barbara Mallory ! ” 

! “ His wife ? I do remember. Sir, that at the time of his 

I unhappy detection and escape, there was something about some 
girl on the Moor. Of course, you know. Sir, I was not in his 
: confidence, and knew little or nothing about the matter ; but I 
know that he had some tie of the sort out there. But his wife 
P — is it possible-? Well, he was just the sort of man, soft 
I enough and reckless enough to be led into anything of the 


416 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


kind. And to think that his son should now turn up to cut the 
Misses Lindisfarn out of their inheritance ! ” 

“Ay, indeed! Slowcome talked about some possibility that 
the child might turn out to be illegitimate after all. But he 
admitted that the man had shown him copies of documents — 
extracts from the register and that sort of thing ; and he 
evidently had little or no hope of being able to resist the claim 
himself Yes, the property will go to the child of that scamp 
Julian, and Miss Margaret and Miss Kate will be nowhere I 
Don’t you feel, Fred, that you have had a most narrow, a most 
providential escape ? ” 

“ An escape, indeed 1 ” cried Frederick ; “ It makes my head 
go round to think of it. But it is very painful, too, to think of 

that poor girl ; she will be furious absolutely furious ; and 

will feel that I have used her very ill.” 

“ Pshaw, let her think what she pleases ! What signifies it 
what she thinks ? She has not a sixpence in the world, I tell 
you. She will have enough to think about as soon as this 
terrible news reaches her. Of course it will be Slowcome’s 
duty to communicate it to the Lindisfarn s immediately. It will 
be all over the town to-morrow. Good Heavens ! I should 
never have forgiven myself, Fred, if this elopement business had 
taken place. You will be pleased to hear, too, that there is 
much less need for any hasty step of the sort. The news from 
Lombard Street to-day has been very good. I am in con- 
siderable hopes that we shall get over the danger with no more 
damage than a mere scratch. A merciful escape there, too. 
But it would have made it doubly unfortunate, if you had gone 
and irretrievably linked your fortunes to those of a beggar. 
As it is, your prospects are as bright as ever. And a word in 
your ear, my boy ! Blakistry told me he did not like the sound 
of Merriton’s cough at all ; and look at his narrow chest. In 
that case, you know, little Emily Merriton would be a prize in 
the lottery worth catching, eh ? ” 

In fact, the last posts from London had brought the Silverton 
banker tidings from his correspondents in Lombard Street, 
which gave him great hope that the serious danger which had 
threatened him, would pass over with very little damage ; and 
for the last day or two his heart had been very much more at 
ease. 

The result of this had been that the old gentleman’s mind 
had returned, with its usual zest, to those learned recrna lions 
vrhich were his delight ; and he had been able once u> 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


417 


take that interest in the proceedings of the Silverton archaa- 
ologists, which, during the period of sharp anxiety about the 
I fortunes of the bank, graver cares had put to flight. It was 
time, too, that he should do so. The great annual meeting of 
the Sillshire Antiquarian Society, was to take place next month. 
Several important papers from various leading members were 
to be read, and one especially by Dr. Lindisfarn, on the 
History and Antiquities of the Church of Chewton in the 
Moor. 

Chewton Church was one of the specimens of ecclesiastical 
architecture of which Sillshire was most proud. Next to 
Silverton Cathedral, it was, probably, the finest church in the 
county. Its remote position had hitherto prevented it from 
receiving all the attention which it merited. But there were 
several points of especial architectural and ecclesiological 
interest attaching to it, and much was epxected from Dr. 
Lindisfarn’s promised paper. It was, in a special degree, his 
own ground, as he was the rector of the parish. He was 
understood to have bestowed long and careful study on the 
subject, and a great treat was expected by his learned brethren, 
and a considerable triumph by himself. 

Mr. Falconer did not at all relish the prospect which was 
so pleasant to his old rival and (archsGological) enemy. It 
was gall and wormwood to him to think that the Canon 
should have it all to himself, and be permitted to walk over the 
> course, as it were. He was sure that Lindisfarn would be 
' guilty of some grievous error, some absurdity or other, which 
; it would be a delicious treat to him to expose at the general 
meeting of the society, — a very learned man, the Doctor ; no 
' doubt a very learned man ; but so inaccurate, so careless, so 
; hasty in jumping to a conclusion. 

The DoctoFs memoir had, it was well known to his brother 
, archaeologists, been some months in preparation ; and the 
banker had already more than once been out to Chewton 
I quietly by himself to ascertain as far as possible the probable 
scope and line of the Doctor’s inquiries and researches, and to 
find, if possible, the means of tripping him up. It was thus 
that he had become acquainted with the fact that old Jared 
Mallory was the clerk of Chewton ; and had indeed made some 
! little acquaintance with that worthy himself ; inasmuch as the 
banker’s inquiries and examinations had necessarily been 
mainly conducted through him. Now, having his mind more 
, at ease respecting his business anxieties, and returning therefore 
27 


418 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


to his pet object of spoiling, if possible, his rival’s expected 
triumph, he determined to pay another visit to the locality on 
the following Sunday. That day was the best for the purpose 
for two reasons — first, because the banker could then absent 
himself from Silverton for the entire day, without interfering 
with business ; and, secondly, because on that day he could be 
sure that Dr. Lindisfarn would be safe in Silverton, and that 
there would be no danger of meeting him on the battle-field. 
The strange circumstances which he had heard from Slowcome, 
made him curious, moreover, to see that old man again, and 
possibly also his daughter, the soi-disant Mrs. Lindisfarn, and 
the child, who had become all at once of so much importance. 
The news of the loss of Hiram Pendleton’s vessel, and of the 
stranger, who had taken a passage in her back to Prance, and 
of the gallant rescue of a woman and child by the bold smuggler 
himself, had become partially known in Silverton ; and it had 
reached the banker’s ears that the rescued mother and child 
had gone back to the house of the woman’s father at 
Chew ton. 

Before the Sunday came, however, which the banker had 
fixed for his excursion, others of those more nearly interested 
in the extraordinary tale which had been told to Mr. Slow- 
come, were beforehand with him in a visit to the little moorland 
village. 

Of course Mr. Slowcome lost no time in communicating his 
tidings to the persons most nearly concerned in them. He had 
himself, the very next morning after his interview with Mallory, 
driven up to the Chase, and been closeted with the Squre in his 
study. Thus Kate was forestalled in the disclosure she was, in 
accordance with the agreement come to with her sister, to have 
made to her father that same morning. And it became unneces- 
sary for her to say anything on the subject. The news the lawyer 
brought was necessarily a tremendously heavy blow to the 
stout and hearty old man. Would to God, he said, that the 
truth could have been known some years earlier ! He might 
then have been enabled to make some provision for his poor 
dear undowered girls. It was now, alas ! almost too late. He 
could not expect to hold the property many more years. Still, 
he might yet do something. Anyway, God’s will be done ; and 
God forbid that he should wish or make any attempt to set aside 
the just right of his brother’s grandson. 

‘‘Those are the sentiments, Mr. Lindisfarn, which, if 1 may 
take the liberty of saying so, I felt sure that I should find in 


liINDISFARN CHASE. 


419 


you. At the same time,*' said Mr. Slowcome, you will permit 
me to observe that it is our bounden duty to ascertain beyond 
all doubt, that the child in question is in truth the legal heir to 
the estates.** 

“ Is there any doubt upon that point, Slowcome ? ** 

“ I cannot tell you, I am sorry to say, Mr. Lindisfarn, that I 
have any very strong doubts upon the subject — or rather, 
perhaps, I should say, that I have not any very strong hope of 
being able to prove that any such doubt in my own mind is 
justified by the facts of the case. But I have some doubt ; I 
certainly liave some doubt : — not that the child now brought 
forward is the son of your nephew, Julian Lindisfarn, but doubt 
whether or no he were really born in wedlock.’* 

“Well, Slowcome ; you know how incompetent I am even to 
form an opinion upon the subject. Let right be done. That 
is all I say. And I know I may leave the matter wholly in 
your hands, with no other expression of my wishes on the 
subject, save that.” 

“Certainly, certainly, Mr. Lindisfarn. Quite so. Of course I 
have not had time as yet to make any even the most preliminary, 
inquiry in the matter ; hardly even to think of the subject with 
any due degree of consideration. But you may depend on all 
being done that ought to be done.’* 

“ Thank you, Slowcome. And now comes the cruellest part 
of the business — I must break the news to my poor girls ! I 
know my Kate will bear it bravely. And my poor, poor Mar- 
garet — hers is a hard case ! But, any way, it is a mercy that 
this was discovered before she made a marriage under false 
pretences, as it were. Falconer is now at liberty to do as he 
likes about it. You will let Mr. Falconer understand that I 
consider him perfectly released from every shadow of a promise 
or intention made under other circumstances.** 

“And now, Mr. Lindisfarn, I must lose no time in waiting 
on your brother. My first duty was, of course, to you.** 

So the lawyer bowed himself out ; and the old Squire 
went bravely to work at the cruelly painful task before 
him. 

Kate said all she could to comfort him. To her the most 
painful part of her conversation with her father was the 
necessity of concealing from him the fact that she already 
knew all he had to tell her. She doubted long as to her true 
duty in the matter ; and was more than once almost inclined to 
yield to the temptation of telling him all. But the recollection 
27—2 


420 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


of her promise to Margaret — though according to the letter of 
it, she was now at liberty to speak, and if the facts had not 
become otherwise known she would have spoken — and the 
thought of the position she would have been placed in by the 
avowal, kept her silent. 

Mr. Mat was absolutely furious — ^utterly refused to believe in 
the legitimacy of Julian’s son — swore it was all a vile plot ; he 
knew those Mallorys, and knew they were up to anything. 
He had known poor old Mellish well. He did not believe but 
that the register could be found. It must and should be found 
somehow ! In short, Mr. Mat was utterly rebellious against 
fate and facts. 

Margaret, of course, was still at her uncle’s house ; and the 
task of breaking the news to her would therefore fall on 
others. 

Mr. Slowcome’s duty in the Close was of a less disagreeable 
nature than it had been up at the Chase. Nevertheless, his 
tidings were not received there with any kind of satisfaction or 
exultation. It was some little time before Hr. Lindisfarn could 
be brought to remember all the old circumstances and piece 
them together with those new ones which had come to light, 
sufficiently to understand the present position of the matter. 
When he did so, his distress for his brother and his nieces, 
was evidently stronger in his mind than any gratification at 
the prospect opened before his own grandchild. The thought 
that his poor lost son — lost so long, and, truth to tell, so nearly 
forgotten — ^had been all those years alive (and under what 
circumstances), and had died so miserably but the other day, 
and almost w’ithin sight of his paternal home ! All this was a 
stirring up of harrowing memories and painful thoughts that 
brought with them nothing of compensation in the changed 
destinies of the family acres. 

As for Lady Sempronia, she went into violent hysterics, and 
shut herself up in her own room, of course. It was a grati- 
fication to her that this tremendous trial should be added to her 
store of such things, much of the same sort as that experienced 
by a collector who adds some specially fine specimen of anything 
hideous to his museum. 

Dr. Lindisfarn requested Mr. Slowcome to undertake the 
duty of breaking the news to Margaret ; and the delicate task 
was accomplished by that worthy gentleman, with all the 
lengthy periphrasis and courtly pomposity which he deemed 
fitting to the occasion. It is needless to say that Margaret 


LtNDlSFARN CHASE. 


421 


played her part to perfection. Of course she knew perfectly 
well from the moment of his solemn entry into Lady Sem- 
pronia’s drab drawing-room, and still more solemn introduction 
of himself, every word that he was going to say. But he left 
her with the conviction that it was impossible for any young 
lady in her unfortunate position to show a greater or more 
touching degree of natural sensibility, tempered by beautiful 
resignation and admirable good sense than she had done. She 
had listened with marked attention to the possibilities he had 
hinted at of error or fraud in the statements made, and had 
cordially adhered to his declarations of the propriety of taking 
every possible step with a view to discovering the real truth. 

“Ah ! said old Slow to himself, as he left the drawing-room, 
“ such a girl as that with one half of the Lindisfarn property, 
would have been a pretty catch for my young friend Fred. It 
is a sad business — a very sad business.” 

But before leaving the Doctor’s house, Mr. Slowcome caused 
himself to be again shown into the study ; and set before the 
Doctor his very strong desire that Dr. Lindisfarn should himself 
accompany one of the firm on a visit to Chewton, with a view 
to seeing on the spot what could be done with a hope of dis- 
covering the missing register. 

“I would go myself, Dr. Lindisfarn,” he said, “if my presence 
were not imperatively required in Silverton, or if Mr. Sligo 
were not in every respect as competent as myself to do all that 
can be done. But it would be a great assistance to us if you 
would consent to accompany him, both on account of your 
knowledge of the localities, and more especially because your 
authority as rector of the parish would be exceedingly useful 
to us.” 

To this proposal the Doctor, who was by no means loth to 
pay yet another visit to the scene and subject of his ecclesio- 
logical labours, and who began to speculate on the possibility 
of finding or creating a disciple in Mr. Sligo, made no difficulty. 
And it was decided that the visit should be made, as unexpectedly 
as possible, on the morrow. 


END OF PART XIII, 


m 


tlHDISFAEN CHASE. 


jFourteenti). 


CHAPTER XLI, 

IN MR. SLIGO’S GIG. 

The cliurch at Chewton in the Moor was, as has been said, a 
remarkable and beautiful building, the loffcy nave and side- 
aisles of which were admirable specimens of the severe and yet 
graceful style, which ecclesiologists of a later generation than 
Dr. Lindisfarn have taught us to call ‘‘ Early English,” while 
the transepts, tower, and chancel evidently belonged to a still 
earlier period. Had it not been that certain untoward circum- 
stances prevented the publication of Dr. Lindisfarn’s elaborate 
and profound monograph on the subject, I might have been 
able to gratify the reader with a more detailed and circumstan- 
tial description of this interesting structure than I can now 
pretend to lay before him. As it is, I must content myself with 
mentioning one specially curious feature, to the elucidation of 
which the learned Canon had particularly applied himself, and 
which formed the subject of one chapter of the Memoir, headed, 
“ On the remains of the ancient panelling in the passage lead- 
ing to the sacristy of Chewton Church, and on certain frag- 
ments of inscriptions still legible thereon.” 

There was in fact at Chewton a singular little building 
almost detached from the church, at the end of the south tran- 
sept of which it stood, and which had evidently in old times 
formed the sacristy, and was now known by the more Pro- 
testant sounding title of the vestry — a thoroughly good Pro- 
testant word, though its first cousin ‘ vestment ’ has a suspi- 
ciously Homish twang in the sound of it ! Well, this whilesome 
sacristy was reached from the church by a sort of corridor, 
which opened out of the eastern wall of the transept, and 


LINDISFAUN CHASE. 


423 


which seemed to be an unnecessarily costly means of communi- 
cation, inasmuch as a door at the extreme corner of the transept 
would have equally effected the purpose. But those “noble 
boys at play,’’ our ancestors, did not always, as we all know, 
practise an enlightened economy in their playing. The appear- 
ance of the detached building and of the corridor, was ex- 
tremely picturesque both on the inside and the outside ; and 
was universally felt to be so by all visitors. And it does seem 
just possible that the aforesaid noble old boys spent their 
money and toil with the express intention of producing that 
result. 

Anyway there was the passage, with its remains of cut- 
stone mouldings and various ornamentation grievously oblite- 
rated and destroyed by the layers of Protestant whitewash, 
which the zeal of many generations of un-aesthetic church- 
wardens had laid stratum over stratum upon tjiem. And then, 
near the sacristy door in the right hand wall of the passage, 
going towards that apartment, there were still visible through 
these coatings of a purer faith the ornamented cornices and 
mouldings of a small but very beautiful arch, which seemed too 
low to have ever been intended for a doorway. And beneath 
this arch, there were certain remains of panelling, partially, and 
indeed almost entirely whitewashed over, on which the greedily 
prying eyes of the learned Canon, had detected in certain spots 
where the whitewash had been rubbed off, those fragments of 
ancient inscriptions, alluded to in the heading to that chapter 
of the Monograph, which has been quoted. The rubbing off 
of the whitewash had been very partial and irregular, but 
enough of the ancient woodwork beneath it had been un- 
covered to permit certain remains of painting to be seen, and 

especially the letters Tanti vi tanti vi tan 

in an extremely rude and archaic character ! 

It was known among the Sillshire archieologists, that Dr. 
Lindisfarn had expended an immense amount of erudition in 
the elucidation of these mysterious syllables, and had con- 
structed on the somewhat slender scaffolding poles thus fur- 
nished him a vast fabric of theory and conjecture, embracing 
various curious points in the social and ecclesiastical history and 
manners of the English clergy during the reigns immediately 
following the Norman invasion ; and a very great treat was 
expected to result from his labours. It was evident that some- 
thing was lost Ibefcween the adjective “ tanti ” and the sub- 
stantive “ vi ! ” They could not be joined in lawful syntax 


424 


LII^DISFARH CHASD. 


together ! And what could the missing word or words have 
been ? The learned Sillshire world was on the tiptoe of ex- 
pectation. 

More than once already had the Doctor strained his eyes to 
descry if possible the very faintest outline or smallest portion 
of a letter in the space, which separated those given above ; 
but all in vain ! And now he proposed profiting by the trip 
proposed to him by Mr. Slowcome, to take the opportunity of 
bringing the younger eyes of the gentleman who was to be his 
companion to bear upon the subject. 

For Mr. Sligo was, it must be understood, quite a young man, 
and was supposed, indeed, by most of those who knew him, to 
be able to see as far into a millstone as most men. He was in 
all respects a very different man from his senior partner, Mr. 
Slowcome. In contradiction to what had been the practice of 
the firm for several generations, young Sligo had been educated 
for his profession, not in the paternal office, in Silverton, but in 
London ; and indeed had only come down to the western metro- 
polis when the sudden death of his father, old Sligo, had 
opened to him the inheritance of a share in the old-established 
firm. 

For Slowcome did not altogether like young Mr. Sligo. 
One understands that such should be the case. I believe that 
old Slow had more real knowledge of law in his pigtail, than 
Sligo had in his whole body. Nevertheless, the younger man 
came down from London with airs and pretensions of new- 
fangled enlightenment, and was full of modern instances, and 
an offensive “ nous-avons-cliange-tout-cela ” sort of assumption of 
superiority, which the greater part — including all the younger 
portion — of the provincial world were disposed to accept as 
good currency. Then young Sligo was very rapid ; and old 
Slowcome was very slow ; and there were other points of con- 
trast, too marked to escape either the Silvertonians or the 
partners themselves. Young Mr. Sligo, however, proved him- 
self an efficient and useful member of the firm, keen, active, 
and intelligent. He was, moreover, “ Young Sligo,’’ the son of 
“Old Sligo;” and that was all in all to Mr. Slowcome. So, ' 
though the two men were as different in all respects as any two 
men could be, they got on pretty well together. 

Old Slowcome was admitted to the society of the clergy in 
the Close, and of the squirearchy in the neighbourhood on 
tolerably equal terms ; but this standing had hardly yet been 
accorded to Mr. Sligo. So that he was all but a stranger to 


LINBISFARN CHASE. 


425 


Dr. Lindisfarn when he waited upon the Canon immediately 
after breakfast, on the morning* subsequent to the conversation 
between that gentleman and Mr. Slowcome, according to the 
arrangement which had been made between them. 

Mr. Sligo had a very neat gig and a spanking fast- trotting 
mare ; and his offer to drive Dr. Lindisfarn over to Chewton 
had been willingly accepted by the Doctor. The road by 
which Chewton could be reached in this manner, was, for 
the latter half of it, a different and a somewhat longer one 
than that by which Dr. Blakistry had ridden across the Moor, 
the track which he had followed being altogether impossible 
for wheels. 

“ I confess. Dr. Lindisfarn,*^ said Sligo to his companion, 
after they had quitted Silverton, and had exchanged a few 
remarks on the beauty of the morning, the qualities of Mr. 
Sligo’s fast-trotting mare, &c., I confess that I have hopes of 
the result of our investigations to-day.” 

“I am truly delighted to hear you say so,” replied Dr. 
Lindisfarn. 

“ I have indeed ; and it is very gratifying to feel that all the 
parties are of one mind in the matter.” 

“ Oh ! there is no doubt of that. All the county are anxious 
about it.” 

‘‘ No doubt, no doubt. Our investigation will be a delicate 
one,” added Mr. Sligo, after a short pause. 

“ Oh, excessively so, you can have no idea to what a degree 
that is the case,” cried the Doctor with great animation, “ the 
traces are so slight ” 

“ They are so, that must be admitted ; they are very slight 
certainly. Nevertheless to a sharp and practised eye, Dr. 
Lindisfarn, if you will not think it presumptuous of me to say 
so, there are certain appearances which ” 

“ Indeed ! you don’t say so ? ” exclaimed Dr. Lindisfarn, 
hardly more delighted than surprised ; “ I was not aware, Mr. 
Sligo, that you had ever turned your attention to investigations 
of this character.” 

“ Turned my attention ? — Why, if you will excuse me saying 
so. Dr. Lindisfarn, I flatter myself that matters of this sort are 
my speciality.” 

“ You don’t say so ! I am truly delighted to hear it. We 
shall be rejoiced to welcome you among us as a fellow-labourer, 
Mr. Sligo.” ^ 

“ Any assistance I may be able to give, in any stage of the 


426 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


business, I shall be proud and happy to afford, I am sure, Br. 
Lindisfarn,’* replied the lawyer, rather surprised at the warmth 
of his companion’s expressions of gratitude. 

‘‘You are very kind, I am sure, Mr. Sligo,” returned the 
Doctor, drawing up a little, for the young lawyer’s proposal of 
meddling with any other stage of the case had instantly alarmed 
his antiquarian jealousy, and he began to suspect a plot for 
robbing him of a portion of the credit of his discovery : “ you 
are very kind, but I think I shall not need to trespass on your 
kindness in respect to any part of the matter, with the excep- 
tion of the researches to be made to-day.” 

“ Oh, indeed. Dr. Lindisfarn ! You are the best judge. I 
may say, however, that when I was with Draper and Duster, 
all the work of this kind there was to be done passed through 
my hands. But you know best. Sir.” 

“Draper and Duster, — I do not remember either of the 
names. Are they members of the Society ? ” asked Dr. Lindis- 
farn, much puzzled. 

“ Yes, Sir, they are. Gray’s Inn. One of the first houses in 
London.” 

“ I don’t think I quite follow you, Mr. Sligo. I have heard 
of Gray’s Inn, as a place of abode for gentlemen of your pro- 
fession. But though I believe I know most of the distinguished 
men who cultivate our delightful science, I do not think that I 
ever heard of the antiquaries you mention.” 

“Well, Sir, — they do cultivate the delightful science, as you 

are complimentary enough to call it, not a little. But I 

never said that they were antiquaries ; and I don’t much see 
what that has to do with the matter.” 

“ Then I am afraid, Mr. Sligo, that we shall differ toto 
coelo on the most fundamental notions of the spirit in which 
the pursuit should be taken up and conducted,” said the 
Doctor, very sententiously, “unless the light of profound 
erudition and scholarship be brought to bear upon these in- 
vestigations, they sink to the rank of mere twaddling and 
trifling.” 

Mr. Sligo faced round in the gig at this, and looked at the 
Senior Canon with a sharp and shrewd eye, as in doubt whether 
the oddness he had heard of in Dr. Lindisfarn did not extend 
to the length of what is called, in common people, not Canons 
of Cathedral churches, stark, staring lunacy. He saw that the 
old gentleman’s florid and clean-shaven face was a little flushed 
— for the Doctor had been speaking with the energy of pro- 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 427 

found conviction on a point that touched him nearly — and he 
therefore answered in a very mild voice : 

“ It would not become me to differ with you on the subject, 
Dr. Lindisfarn ; far from it. No doubt you are right. I dare- 
say what we have got to do to-day may seem twaddling and 
trifling to a gentleman like you ; but I can assure you that it 
is only by such twaddling and trifling that we have any chance 
of saving the Lindisfarn property from going to an illegiti- 
mate brat.” 

“ Saving the Lindisfarn property ! Bless my heart, Mr. Sligo, 
I was not thinking anything about the Lindisfarn property.” 

“Then what in the name of heaven I beg your pardon. 

Dr. Lindisfarn — but what, if you please, have we been talking 
about all this time ? ” 

“Talking about, Mr. Sligo? Why about the partially 
defaced inscription in the sacristy, to be sure. What else 
should we have been talking about ? ” 

“ Oh, dear, dear me. There is a case of mistaken identity 
now. Why, if you will believe me. Dr. Lindisfarn, I was 
speaking, and thought you were speaking, all the time about 
the search for the missing register that we are going to make 
at Chew ton ! ” 

“ I was mistaken, then, in supposing that you are interested 
in antiquarian investigations, Mr. Sligo ? ” said the old man, 
much disappointed. 

“ I am afraid so. Sir,” said Sligo. 

“ And you never have paid any attention to the deciphering 
of ancient inscriptions ? ” 

“ Not that I am aware of. Sir.” 

Dr. Lindisfarn heaved a deep sigh, but was nevertheless 
somewhat comforted by the reflection that he was in no danger 
of being robbed by a rival, if he had no chance of assistance 
from a brother. 

“ Nevertheless,” he said, “ it may be that you might be able 
to descry with your young eyes, what my old ones, though 
aided by, perhaps I may be allowed to say, no incompetent 
amount of study, have failed to make out. I will show you the 
spot, and perhaps you will try if you can discover any further 
remains of letters.” 

“ With all the pleasure in life. Dr. Lindisfarn ; and you shall 
assist me with your authority as rector, and your acquaintance 
with the late curate’s character and ways. I am told he was a 
very queer one.” 


428 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“The fact is, I am ashamed to say, Mr. Sligo, that I knew 
very little about him ; less, perhaps, than I ought to have done. 
I found him there when I succeeded to the living which had 
previously been held by old Dean Burder. He was quite one 
of the old school, I take it.^^ 

“ Ah ! not very regular in his ways, nor quite up to the 
mark, I suppose. I believe Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn knew him 
well ? 

“ Yes. I fancy Mr. Mat and poor Mellish used to be rather 
cronies in those old times. Mellish was very musical, and that 
was enough for Mr. Mat.’’ 

“ Oh, musical, was he ? But he was a little too fond of this 
sort of thing, was he not,” said Mr. Sligo, raising his elbow in 
a significant manner. 

“ Ah ! too fond of his glass of wine, you mean, Mr. Sligo ? 
Well, it was said so. I am afraid to a certain degree it was so. 
We all have our failings, Mr. Sligo.” 

“Too true. Dr. Lindisfarn. I am not the man to forget 
it. I only ask these things because they may have a bear- 
ing on our present business. Under the circumstances, I 
suppose that some degree, perhaps a considerable amount, 
of irregularity in church matters may have prevailed in his 
parish? ” 

“ It may have been so. There were never any complaints, 
however. He certainly was very popular in the parish. The 
people were very much attached to him.” 

“ Did he inhabit the parsonage house at Chewton ? ” asked 
the lawyer. 

“ There is no parsonage house, unfortunately, nor has there 
been one for several generations. When the old house fell 
down in one of the great storms that often sweep this moor- 
land district, it was never rebuilt.” 

“ Are you aware where the late curate did live, then. Sir ? ” 
asked Mr. Sligo. 

“ For many years, for all the latter part of his life, indeed, 
during all the time that he held the curacy under me, he lodged 
at the house of the parish clerk, a man of the name of Mallory, 
a very decent sort of person, I fancy.” 

“0...h! the late curate lived in the house of Mr. Jared 
Mallory, did he ? ” rejoined Mr. Sligo, with a special ex- 
pression of voice and feature, that was quite lost on Dr. Lin- 
disfam. 

“Yes, it was convenient in many ways. Mallory lived in a 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 429 

good house of his own, larger than he needed j and it was near 
the church.” 

“ And perhaps all the farther from you know the saying, 

Dr. Lindisfarn, and will excuse me for being reminded of it on 
this occasion,” said the lawyer. 

“No. I am not aware of any such popular saw or saying ! ” 
replied Dr. Lindisfarn. “ But the fact was, that it was con- 
venient for him also to be in the same house with the parish 
clerk, you understand.” 

“ I see, Sir, I see ! many years under this Mallory’s roof ; 
man of that sort necessarily falls under the influence of those 
about him — parish clerk especially ; I see, I see ! I sup- 
pose this is Chewton, down in the hollow here in front of us. 
Sir?” 

“ Yes, here we are ; this is Chewton, but you don’t get so 
good a first view of the church coming this way, as by the 
other road over the Moor.” 

“ I suppose our plan will be to drive direct to the clerk’s 
house, Sir ? Do you know which it is ? ” 

“ Oh yes, follow down the main street of the village straight 
on ; the church is a little to the left at the further end ; and 
Mallory’s is near the bottom of the street on the left hand 
side.” 

So Mr. Sligo drew his fast-trotting mare and smart gig 
sharply up to the door of the stone house with the iron rail in 
front of it ; and rather unceremoniously throwing the reins to 
Dr. Lindisfarn, and saying shortly, “ I will announce you, Sir,” 
sprang from the gig, almost before it had stopped, and dashed 
precipitately into the house, without any ceremony of knocking 
or asking leave whatever. 


430 


liINDISFARN CHASE, 


CHAPTER XLII, 

LADY FARNLEIGH RETURNS TO SILLSHIRE, 

Margaret waited at the little door leading from the Canon’s 
garden into the Castle Head lane till the Cathedral clock chimed 
the half-hour past six. 

It was a raw night, and her bodily condition at the end of 
that half-hour was not a pleasant one. But her sufferings from 
that cause were as nothing — absolutely nothing — to the mental 
torture she endured during at least the latter half of those 
never by her to be forgotten thirty minutes. Nothing but her 
own very strong reason for wishing that the proposed elope- 
ment should be carried into effect could have induced her to 
swallow her bitter burning indignation so long, and force her- 
self to take yet a little more patience. We know how impor- 
tant it was to all her hopes that the thing should come off ; 
and very, very cruel was the gradual growth during those 
minutes of misgiving into despairing conviction that it was not 
to be. For the first ten minutes she was very angry with her 
lover for his ungallant want of punctuality. And as she stood 
with her ear on the stretch, she kept rehearsing to herself the 
eloquent upbraiding with which she promised herself to punish 
his misdemeanour. During the second ten minutes, anxiety was 
gradually growing into dread ; and during the last ten she was 
suffering from the sickening despairing certainty that all was 
lost. 

Still, the true cause of the miscarriage of her hopes and 
plans never occurred to her. There was no possibility appa- 
rent to her by which the fatal news could have yet reached her 
lover’s ear ; that fatal news which she had all that month past 
concealed in her heart with a fortitude analogous to that of the 
Spartan boy, who held the fox beneath his cloak, while he 
gnawed his vitals. Among all the conjecturings which chased 
each other tumultuously through her mind during the whole of 
that night, therefore, the real nature of her raisfoftune never 
unveiled itself to her in its full extent. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


431 


She stole back to the house as the half-hour struck, shivering 
without and burning with shame and indignation within ; and 
succeeded in slinking up to her room without having been seen. 
It did not very much signify to her ; for if she had chanced to 
meet Elizabeth on the stairs, she would merely have said that, 
finding her head very bad, she had gone down to see whether 
the cool fresh air of the garden would do it any good. 

The next morning her looks, when she descended to her 
uncle’s breakfast-room, vouched abundantly for the truth of her 
statement respecting her headache. 

Then in the course of the morning came Mr. Slowcome on 
his return from the Chase, with the great news ; to the com- 
munication of which she listened, as has been said, with all 
propriety. Then the causes of the disappointment of the pre- 
vious evening became intelligible to her. She had at least 
very little doubt upon the subject. The truth was known 
to Mr. Slowcome yesterday. There was very little room to 
doubt that Falconer had heard it from him, and had there- 
upon abandoned the projected elopement and the marriage 
together. 

That Falconer should, on learning the real state of the case, 
give up all idea of the marriage, seemed to her so much a 
matter of course, and was so wholly conformable to the line of 
conduct which she would have pursued herself in similar cir- 
cumstances, that she could not in her heart, blame him for it. 
Nor did she pretend to herself that she did so. But it was the 
manner of the thing. To leave her there, exposed to all the 
inconveniences, the risks, the mortifications, the uncertainty. 
It was brutal, it was cowardly, it was ungentlemanlike, it was 
unmanly. And Falconer’s conduct assuredly was all this. 
And if the gentle and lovely Margaret had had power to 
give effect to the promptings of her heart, it would have 
been well that day for Frederick Falconer, if he could have 
changed lots with the most miserable wretch that crawled the 
earth. 

The next day — that on which Mr. Sligo drove Dr. Lindisfarn 
over to Chewton, as has been narrated — Margaret returned to 
the Chase. She would have given much to have escaped from 
the necessity of doing so and of meeting Kate, under the cir- 
cumstances ; but there was no possibility of avoiding it. It 
was too obviously natural that her father should wish to speak 
with her : and in fact the intimation that she had better return 
home came to her from him, Mr, Mat came for her in the 


432 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


gig, soon after the Doctor and Mr. Sligo had started on their 
excursion. 

“ *Tis a bad business ; a cruel bad business,** said Mr. Mat, 
feeling deep sympathy with Margaret on this occasion, though 
there was generally so little of liking between them, but though 
very sincerely feeling it, finding himself much at a loss to ex- 
press it. Mr. Mat could not be considered an eloquent man, 
certainly, yet he had found no difficulty in speaking out what 
was in his heart to Kate on this occasion. It was different 
with Margaret. “ A bad business ; and I don’t know what I 
wouldn’t ha’ done sooner than it should have happened. Miss 
Margaret. Still, when all is said and done, money is not every, 
thing in this world, Miss Margaret, and ” 

“ I am aware, Mr. Mat,” replied the young lady, with tragic 
resignation, “ that virtue alone is of real value, or can confer 
real happiness in this world.” 

Mr. Mat gave her a queer furtive look out of the tail of his 
shrewd black eye ; but he only said, “ Ay, to be sure, and with 
such looks as yours, too ” 

“ Beauty is but a fleeting flower,” said Margaret, in very bad 
humour, but still minded as usual to play her part correctly, 
and say the proper things to be said. 

“ But *tis the sweetest flower that blows while it does last,” 
said the gallant Mr. Mat. 

“I have ever been taught to set but small store by it,” 
sighed Margaret ; and then there was a long pause in their 
conversation, which lasted till Mr. Mat began to walk his horse 
up the steepest part of the hill going up from the Ivy bridge 
to the Lindisfarn lodge gates. 

“ I don’t believe it ; I won’t and can’t believe it,” he then 
said, as the result of his meditations. 

“ Believe what, Mr. Mat ? ” asked Margaret. 

“ Believe that the child they want to set up as the heir is 
your cousin Julian’s lawful son. Miss Margaret.** 

“ You don’t say so, Mr. Mat ? ** cried Margaret, in a very 
different tone of voice from that in which she had before spoken. 

“ I said Mr, Mat, very decisively ; “ but not believing is 
one thing, mind you ; and finding out is another.” 

“ What do you think is the truth then, Mr. Mat ? ** said 
Margaret, in a more kindly tone than she had ever before used 
to her companion. 

“ I don’t know ; but I zem there’s a screw loose somewhere ; 
I don’t believe *tis all right.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 433 

Oil, Mr. Mat ! do you think it would be possible to find it 
out ? ” 

“Ah, that’s the thing; they are cute chaps ; and that fellow 
Jared Mallory the attorney is a regular bad ’un. But maybe 
the play is not all played out yet. Here we are, Miss Mar- 
garet ; and welcome home to the old place ! ” 

Kate was on the steps waiting to meet her sister, and seized 
her in her arms, as she got down from the gig. 

“ Come up stairs, dear. Papa is out about the place some- 
where. He will see you before dinner.” 

Margaret kissed her sister somewhat stiffly and ungraciously, 
and proceeded to follow her up the stairs in silence. When 
they were together in Kate’s room, the latter said, 

“ You know, I suppose, Margaret, how the news came out. 
You are aware that it was communicated to Mr. SlowCome, and 
he came up here to tell us yesterday ? ” 

“ Oh yes, I know it all ! ” said Margaret. 

“And and yourself — your own affairs?” hesitated 

Kate, whose great anxiety on her sister’s behalf would not let 
her be silent, though she felt a difficulty in asking for explana- 
tions which, according to her own feelings, should have come 
so spontaneously from sister to sister. 

“ Everything is broken off between me and Mr. Falconer, 
Kate, if that is what you are alluding to, — broken off now and 
for ever, whatever may be the result of the doubts that have 
arisen.” 

“ Doubts that have arisen, dear Margaret ? I fear the nature 
of the case has not been fully explained to you. Alas ! there 
are no doubts about the matter.” 

“ I have spoken with the lawyer myself, Kate, and prefer to 
trust to my own impressions,” said Margaret, whose sole idea 
that there might be any doubt about the matter arose from the 
words which had dropped from Mr. Mat in the gig. 

“ I fear that you are deluding yourself with a baseless hope, 
Margaret,” said Kate, shaking her head sadly. “ But I know 
that the change in our position has not been the worst unhappi- 
ness you have had to struggle with, dearest ; and my heart has 
been very heavy for you ; for I feared — I feared, Margaret, as 
I told you, that he was not worthy of the great faith and trust 
you placed in him.” 

“ Mr. Falconer has behaved very badly. It would be agree- 
able to me never, if that were possible, to hear his name again. 
I hope, at all events, not to have to hear it from you, Kate ! ” 
28 


434 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


And it was clear that Margaret intended that the whole topic 
of her engagement should be closed and walled up between her 
and Kate. 

“ It was a very great shock to poor papa at first,’’ said Kate ; 
“ and it was very painful to me, as you may suppose, to be 
obliged to conceal from him that I had known it all along ; 
but there was no help for it. But the worst is not over, Mar- 
garet ; Lady Farnleigh is coming home in a day or two ; and 
I do dread the having a concealment between her and me. It 
is a great, great comfort that she is coming home — a comfort 
that I have been longing for these many weeks. And now 
the happiness of seeing her is almost all spoilt by the neces- 
sity of keeping this miserable secret from her knowledge. 
And it is not so easy a matter, let me tell you, Margaret, 
to keep a secret from godmamma, as it is from dear old 
Noll.” 

“ You don’t mean to say, Kate, that you are going to break 
your promise and betray me ! You are not going to put it into 
the power of that woman to ruin me ! ” 

“Margaret, Margaret — that ivoman ! and ruin you! For 
Heaven’s sake do not speak in such a way ; and worse still, 
have such thoughts in your heart.” 

“ That’s all nonsense, Kate ; Lady Farnleigh is not my god- 
mother. It is plain enough to see that she detests me, I saw 
that clearly the first day I came here; I saw her jealousy for 

her favourite as if it were my fault that I tell you she 

hates me ; and it would be delightfal to her to have it in her 

power to twit and expose me ; and I had rather die 

than that Lady Farnleigh, of all the people in the world, 

should know all about it. I had rather die,” repeated 

Margaret, with a flash of her eyes that perfectly startled her 
sister. 

On the next day but one to that on which this conversation 
passed between the two sisters. Lady Farnleigh returned to 
Wanstrow, and showed her impatience to see her darling Kate 
under the unhappy circumstances that had fallen upon her, by 
driving over to Lindisfarn that same evening. She arrived at 
the Chase in time for dinner, but during that meal, of course 
nothing was said of the subject that was uppermost in all their 
hearts. 

After dinner, as the ladies were crossing the hall to the 
drawing-room. Lady Farnleigh made a sign to Kate to let Miss 
Immy and Margaret go on to the drawing-room, and to escape 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 435 

Up stairs with her to her room. It was not an unprecedented 
escapade of her ladyship’s. 

“ And now tell me all about it, my dear, dear girl — my poor 
dear Kate. Has it hit your father very hard ? ” 

“ It was a hard blow at first ; very hard. But you know my 
dear father ; dear old Koll ! You know his cheery, hearty 
nature. Sorrow cannot stick to him ; it runs off like water ofi 
a duck’s back — his genial, strong nature turns it. Nevertheless 
I am sure he has felt it deeply — if he could only have known 
the truth earlier in life, he says. Poor dear, dear Noll ! And 
I cannot say all that I would to comfort him, you see, because 
the misfortune hits poor Margaret more severely than it does 
me. Thanks to a certain good fairy that stood by at my 
christening, you know, I am sufficiently well provided for,” said 
Kate, creeping close up to her godmother’s side. 

“ Sufficiently provided for ! You know very little, my poor 
child, of what pounds, shillings and pence can do, and what 
they can’t. If you mean that you need never come upon the 
parish, as far as that goes, you may probably be easy. You 
want but little here below, and all the rest of it, I daresay. 
But Birdie wants her oats, and plenty of them, and a good 
groom to wait on her. It is all very fine talking, Kate, and 
the headings to the copybooks may say what they please, but 
poverty is a bitter thing to those who have to make acquaint- 
ance with it for the first time in the midst of a life of ease and 
abundance.” 

“ Well, you are a Job’s comforter, you bad fairy, I must say,” 
cried Kate, laughing. 

“ I don’t like it, Kate, and I can’t pretend to say that I do. 
It is a great misfortune, and there is no wisdom in pretending 
to ourselves that it is not so.” 

“ I have still so much to be thankful for — so much that ought 
to make happiness,” said Kate, with rather suspicious emphasis 
on the word “ ought.” 

“ Yes, that is all very pretty spoken, and proper — and it’s 
true, indeed — which is more than can be said for all pretty and 
proper speeches. But now, Goddaughter, we have got to 
discuss another chapter. Yes, you know what is coming. 
Miss Kate ; I see your guilt in your face. How dare you 
take advantage of my back being turned to break my dear 
friend’s heart ? ” 

Kate looked up into Lady Farnleigh’s face with an -expression 
that caused her at once to change her tone. 

28 -^ 


436 


LINDISFAHN CHASE. 


If I try to laugh, my own darling, it is to save crying,” 
she said, putting her arm round Kate’s neck, and pressing the 
gracious drooping head against her bosom — for they had been 
standing side by side in front of the low fire in Kate’s room. 
“ What is it, my Kate ? Tell me all that there is in this dear, 
good, honest heart, which I feel beating, beating, as if it would 
burst. Tell me all about it, my own child.” 

It was true enough, as Lady Farnleigh said, that Kate’s agi- 
tation was becoming more and more painful, as her friend 
spoke. Her bosom rose and fell with long-drawn sighs, that 
despite her utmost efforts to suppress them, gradually became 
sobs. Slowly the great clear tear-drops which had been 
gathering in her eyes beneath the downcast lids, brimmed over, 
and rolled down her pale cheeks, till suddenly flinging herself 
into a chair by her side she fell into such a storm of hysterical 
weeping that Lady Farnleigh became at once convinced, not 
without astonishment, that there was something more than the 
patent circumstances of the case could account for, to occasion 
so violent and so painful an emotion. For violence of emotion, 
hysterics, and the like, and even tears, were quite out of Kate’s 
usual way. It was very evident to Lady Farnleigh, as she 
looked on the convulsed face and bosom of her dearly loved 
godchild, with sympathising sorrow and almost with alarm 
expressed in her own face, that there was some serious cause 
for grief here, beyond those of which she was cognizant. 

She had heard in a few short lines from Captain Ellingham 
of his rejection, and of the change of station which he had, 
under happier circumstances, looked forward to as such a mis- 
fortune, but which he was now disposed to consider as a most 
lucky escape from scenes and associations which had become 
intolerable to him. She had heard this, and had heard it with 
some surprise and a little vexation, but had flattered herself 
that some of the many misunderstandings, or shynesses, or 
cross-purposes, which are so apt to interfere with the precise 
intercommunication of people’s sentiments and purposes in 
such matters, would be found to have caused all the mischief, 
and a little judicious intermediation would put it all right. But 
now the fearful state of agitation into which Kate had been 
thrown by the mere mention of the subject, showed her that it 
was no mere affair of girlish coyness or even of the rejection of 
a suitor whom she could not love. There was something else 
— something more than all this ; and influenced by the purest 
and truest desire to find the means of comfort for so great a 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


437 


sorrow, she determined to get to the bottom of the matter in 
some way. 

But it was evident that the heart wound was not at that 
moment in a state to endure the probe, even in the tenderest 
hands. So she applied herself to soothing the weeping girl 
as well as she could, without any attempt to continue the 
subject. 

“You have been too much shaken, my poor Kate, by all 
these things ; we will not speak now on painful subjects. 
Hereafter when you are calmer, and your spirits have recovered 
their usual tone — hereafter you shall tell me all you can feel a 
comfort in telling.” 

“ Indeed, indeed, Godmamma, I have no loisli to have secrets 

from you ! I I ” and hiding her face on Lady Farn- 

leigh’s shoulder, she burst anew into a passion of tears. 

“ There, there, my darling, we will speak no more of it now ; 
another time, another time. There, my Kate, your tears will 
have done you good; there, you will be calmer now, my child ! ” 
and Lady Farnleigh soothed her on her bosom as she spoke, as 
a nurse soothes a suffering infant. 

After a little while Kate became calmer ; and having 
dried her tears, but with a still quivering lip, said to her 
friend : — 

“ But, you know, dearest Godmamma, that it was all for 
the best ; what should we have done, think, if Captain Elling- 
ham had been accepted by me, when he supposed that I pos- 
sessed fortune enough for all our requirements, and then ” 

“Do you imagine, Kate, that Ellingham proposed to you 
because you were an heiress ? ” 

“ No, no, that I am sure, quite sure, he did not,” replied Kate, 
with an energy which Lady Farnleigh marked, and made a 
note of in her mind. 

“ Well, then ? ” said she. 

“ But that is a very different thing from proposing to a girl 
supposed to be a large heiress, and then finding that she has 
nothing.” 

“ Yes, it is different. It would be fair in such a case to give 
back to a man his entire liberty ; fair, too, to hold him blame- 
less if he availed himself of it to retire from a position he 
never intended to occupy.” 

“ But it would be very unfair,” exclaimed Kate, “ to expose a 
man to such a painful ordeal.” 

“ Very unfair ; — but you are talking nonsense, Kate, dear. 


438 


LimSFARN CHASE. 


Such unfairness as you speak of would imply that the lady was 
aware of the mistake respecting her fortune. Of course no 
good girl would be guilty of such conduct as that. But what 
has that to do with the present case ? ” 

“ I only said, dear Godmamma, that it was all for the best as 
it turned out, since Captain Ellingham had no intention of pro- 
posing to a girl who had nothing to help towards the expenses 
of a home.” 

‘‘ That, my dear Kate, is a matter for Captain Ellingham’s 
consideration ; and what his sentiments upon that point are, 
you have no means of knowing.” 

“ I do know, at all events, that he does not imagine that I 
refused him because I had, or was supposed to have, much more 
money than he had. I do know that, for he told me so in the 
most noble and generous manner ; and it is a great, great 
comfort,” said Kate, and the now silent tears began to drop 
anew. 

Lady Earnleigh observed the emotion which the mention of 
this circumstance caused Kate, and added a mem. of it to the 
note she had already taken. 

“If, indeed, you had known of the strange circumstances 
which have come to light and have so materially altered your 
prospects, at the time you rejected Ellingham’s offer, it would 
all have been intelligible enough ; and it would have been for 
him to renew his suit under the changed circumstances of the 
case, or not, as he might think fit ; but that was not the case. 
If he were now to do so, it would be insulting to suppose that 
you might accept a man in your poverty whom you had rejected 
in your wealth.” 

“ Oh, Lady Earnleigh, the bare thought is hideous,” cried 
Kate, seeming to shrink bodily, as from a stab, while she 
spoke ; “ hideous ; and Captain Ellingham is incapable of con- 
ceiving such an idea. He will never repeat his offer. As you 

say, it would be offensive to me to do so in a manner in 

which it is impossible that he should offend.” 

Again Lady Earnleigh silently added another note to her 
mental tablets. 

“ And what is all this about your sister Margaret ? ” con- 
tinued she, willing to lead Kate’s mind away, for the nonce, 
from the subject of her own affairs ; “ I hear that she was 
engaged to Mr. Ealconer; and what is to become of that 
engagement now ? ” 

“ It is all true, Godmamma, too true. She was engaged to 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 439 

Mr. Falconer. Papa had given his consent, and the settlements 
were being made out. But it is all broken off now.” 

“ Oh, it’s all off now. And how long had it been on, 
pray ? ” 

“ It is a little more than a month since she accepted him, 
I think,” replied Kate, remembering vividly enough that mise- 
rable and memorable day so soon after that interview with her 
cousin in the cottage at Deep Creek. 

“ A month ago, was it ? ” said Lady Famleigh, musing. 

“Yes, about a month ago. But we have seen very little of 
it at all up here at the Chase. Margaret has been almost 
constantly down in Silverton with Lady Sempronia and my 
uncle.” 

“ And when did the break-off take place ? ” 

“ Oh, just the other day.” 

“ On the news of this unlucky discovery about the property, 
of course ? ” 

“ I presume so, of course. But Margaret is not communi- 
cative about ifc. She does not like speaking on the subject, 
naturally enough.” 

“And what did the gentleman say for himself? How well I 
judged that man, Kate ! ” 

“ I have no idea how it was brought about, or what 
passed. I know that Margaret considers herself to have 
been very ill-treated. She said briefly that all was off be- 
tween them, and that she wished she could never hear his 
name again.” 

“ So, so, so, so. Well, my dear, I daresay she has been ill- 
treated. My notion is, that Master Fred is a man to behave 
ill in such circumstances. There are more ways than one of 
doing a thing. But still it is right to bear in mind what we 
were saying just now, you know, of the unfairness of holding 
a man to an engagement made under very difierent circum- 
stances.” 

“ Of course, Godmamma. I don’t know at all how matters 
passed between Margaret and Mr. Faboner. The making of 
the engagement, and the breaking of it, were both done down 
in the Close.” 

“ Unreasonable to expect that a man should consider 

himself bound by such an engagement under such circum- 
stances,” continued Lady Farnleigh, more as if she was talking 
to herself than to her companion, “ and yet a man must be a 
great cur I daresay Mr. Frederick Falconer did it very 


440 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


brutally. At all events he lost no time about it. What day 
was it that the facts about this new claim were known ? ” 

“Mr. Slowcome came up here to papa on the Thursday 
morning. It must have been known to everybody in the course 
of that day. Mr. Falconer may have heard of it even on the 
previous evening.” 

“ And when did you say the break-off between them took 
place ? ” 

“ I only know that when Margaret came home on the Satur- 
day, she told me that it was all off.” 

“ From the Thursday morning to the Friday night ; that was 
the time he had to do it in. Upon my word, Master Freddy 
must have shown himself worthy of the occasion ! Why, he 
must have jammed his helm hard up, and laid his vessel on her 
beam ends at the very first sight of the breakers ahead.” 

“ He certainly could not have lost much time in making up 
his mind about it,” Kate admitted. 

“ And what had I better say to her on the subject ? ” said 
Lady Farnleigh, after a short pause, during which she had been 
thinking over the circumstances of this broken match, as 
far as they were patent to her, with a resulting estimate of 
the actors in the little drama not very favourable to either of 
them. 

“ Well, I am sure Margaret would be best pleased by your 
sapng nothing at all.” 

“ Then nothing at all will I say ; I am sure there is nothing 
agreeable or useful to be said ; and I have no wish to pain or 
annoy her. And now I suppose, my pet, that we must go down 
into the drawing-room. Your father and Mr. Mat will have 
come in from their wine by this time : and I want to have a 
little chat with Mr. Mat. I suppose Margaret won’t think me 
a brute for saying no word of condolence to her, respecting the 
mangled condition of her heart.” 

“ How, Godmamma, I must not let you be savage and spite- 
ful about poor Margaret,” said Kate, with a faint attempt at a 
smile. “I am sure she must have suffered.” 

“ Well ! I won’t be savage and spiteful ; an contmire, you 
unreasonable Kate, was I not debating with myself whether or 
no it would be more civil to attempt any binding up of her 
wounds by my condolences ? But I suppose not, I do not think 
it is a case for my surgery : I am sure I wish to be civil, not 

spiteful. But there ! I don’t want to meddle with it. 

But if you were to hang and quarter me, my dear, I cannot be 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


441 


sympathetic and tearful over the loves of Miss Margaret and 
Mr. Frederick, whether the course of them run smooth or 
crosswise.^^ 

So Kate and her Fairy Godmother went down into the 
drawing-room ; where they found the Squire fast asleep in his 
favourite corner of the fireplace ; Miss Immy sitting bolt 
upright in a small chair at the table, tranquilly reading her 
“Clarissa Harlowe,” with a pair of candles immediately in 
front of her ; Mr. Mat busily engaged in weaving the meshes 
of a landing-net at a table by himself in the further part of the 
room, silently whistling a tune over his work — (if the phrase 
is a permissible one for the description of a performance which 
consisted, as far as outward manifestation went, only of the 
movement of the lips and eyebrows) — and Miss Margaret half 
reclining elegantly on a sofa, unoccupied save in (hewing the 
cud of sweet and bitter fancy. Her attitude was unexception- 
able, and her occupation very pardonable. Nevertheless, some 
hidden consciousness or other made her spring up and reseat 
herself in a primmer fashion, as the door opened, and Lady 
Farnleigh and her sister came in. 

“ I was afraid Mr. Banting would have brought the tea in, 
Miss Immy, and that you would have waited for us,** said Lady 
Farnleigh. 

“ Oh dear no ! ** said Miss Immy ; as if her guest had 
suggested the most absurd impossibility. “It wants five 
minqtes to tea-time yet.** 

“ Indeed ! Well, I shall spend these five minutes in a 
tete-a-tete with Mr. Mat, over there at his separate establish- 
ment, and try whether I can’t make him miss a mesh at least 
once in every minute.** 

“Not you. Lady Farnleigh,** said Mr. Mat. But never- 
theless it might have been observed that Mr. Mat’s netting 
made but very little progress from that time till the tea was 
brought. 


442 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

LADY FARNLEIGH CATCHES AN IDEA. 

Lady Farnleigh slept at tlie Chase that night, as she usually 
did on the occasion of her visits. She had, also as her wont 
was, ridden over from Wanstrow, sending what she needed 
for her stay at the Chase through Silverton, and retaining 
her own horse at Lindisfarn, but sending back to Wanstrow 
the groom who had ridden behind her. At breakfast the 
next morning she said, 

“I hope you have not forgotten your promise, Mr. Mat. 
Mr. Mat and I are going to ride into Silverton this morning. 
It is not very civil, is it Kate, to run off and leave you in 
such a fashion the first morning ? But I can’t help it. I 
have all sorts of things to do, and people to see, so that there 
would be no pleasant ride to be got. We will have a good 
gallop together to-morrow, Katie dear. But to-day I invite 
only Mr. Mat to ride with me, because there will be nothing 
but what is disagreeable to be done.” 

“ Always ready for the worst that can happen in your Lady- 
ship’s company,” said Mr. Mat. 

Margaret glanced up at Lady Farnleigh’s face with a sharp 
uneasy look, as the latter had spoken of the various things 
she had to do, and people to see in Silverton ; but she quickly 
dropped her eyes again on her breakfast plate, and did not 
say anything. As soon, however, as Lady Farnleigh and 
Mr. Mat had, almost immediately after breakfast, mounted 
their horses and ridden away towards the lodge on the road 
to Silverton, and the Squire had somewhat listlessly sauntered 
back into his study, and Miss Immy had bustled off to her 
domestic cares, Margaret said to her sister, 

“ I wonder, Kate, that your favourite godmamma did not 
invite you to ride with her ; it is so long since you have had a 
ride together.”’ 

“Yes, and I shoujd have liked a good gallop over the 
common towards Weston well enough,” said Kate, “ but you 
heard her say that she had several people to see in Silverton.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 443 

“ I wonder who it is she has gone to see ? ” rejoined Mar- 
garet, after a pause. 

“ How should I know ? She has a great many friends in 
Silverton, and business people to see beside, very likely/* 

“ But all her friends are acquaintances of yours. Why 
should she not have taken you with her?** persisted Mar- 
garet. 

“ She would easily guess that I am not much in a humour 
for visiting,** returned Kate, “ as in good truth I am not'.** 

“ I wonder why she took Mr. Mat with her ? ** still con- 
tinued Margaret, pondering, and evidently not at all satisfied 
with Kate’s answers ; “ Will she call in the Close, do you 
suppose, Kate ? ’* 

“Very likely. She did not say anything to me about it,** 
answered Kate, carelessly. 

“ Did you observe how closely she and Mr. Mat were talking 
together last night in the drawing-room ? ** said Margaret, 
still, as it seemed, uneasy about the visit to Silverton. 

“Hot particularly. But it is very likely. They are very 
old friends and allies, my godmamma and Mr. Mat.** 

“ Yes ; but I am sure they were planning something about 
what they are gone to Silverton for this morning ! ** said 
Margaret. 

“ Nothing more likely. But what in the world have you 
got into your head, Margaret, about Lady Farnleigh’s ride 
to Silverton ? ** 

“ Oh ; I know what I know, and I think what I think. I’ve 
a notion that she is gone to plot and plan, or meddle or make 
in some way about our affairs. And however much you may 
like that, Kate, I don’t like it. I don’t like her, as you well 
know ; and I don’t at all want her to interfere with any affairs 
of mine.** 

“ Why, how should she interfere, Margaret ? I can’t guess 
what you are thinking of,** said Kate, much surprised ; “ and 
I am so sorry, more sorry than you can think,** she added, 
“ that you have taken such an unreasonable dislike to my 
dear, dear godmother. You may depend on it, Margaret, 
that we have not a better friend in the world than Lady 
Farnleigh.** 

“That is to say, she is your friend,” returned Margaret, 
with a strong emphasis on the possessive pronoun. 

“ My friend, and you? friend, and Noll’s friend, and the 
dearest friend our mother had in the world, Margaret ! *' 


444 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


“ That’s all very well, Kate, for you. But I like choosing 
my friends for myself,” said Margaret. 

Meanwhile Lady Farnleigh and Mr. Mat were walking 
their horses leisurely down the road that led towards the Ivy 
bridge. 

“This is a very sad affair, Mr. Mat. Do you think the 
Squire feels it very deeply ? ” said her ladyship. 

“It is the worst piece of business that ever happened at 
Lindisfarn, Lady Farnleigh. The Squire, God bless him, is 
one of those who think that care killed a cat; and he will 
none on’t. But he feels it, he feels it for all that, you may 
depend on it.” 

“ And my darling Kate ! she is not like herself. neither 

mind nor body. Do you think, Mr. Mat, that she is fretting 
about it ? I should not have thought that it would have 
affected her so deeply.” 

“ Not a bit of it, Lady Farnleigh. Kate’s not a fretting 
after the acres. That’s another bad matter ; another and 
not the same.” 

“ How another — what other ? ” said Lady Farnleigh, who, 
having been obliged to quit the subject of Ellingham’s offer to 
Kate, in the manner that has been seen, had failed to learn 
whether the fact had become known to any of the members of 
the family, and was anxious to ascertain this point. 

“ Ah ! that’s the question,” said Mr. Mat, with a deep sigh ; 
“ that’s just what I should thank anybody to tell me. I don’t 
suppose there’s been a day for the last fortnight that the 
Squire and I have not talked it over after dinner. Squire’s 
a deal more down in the mouth about Kate, than he is about 
the property. As you say. Lady Farnleigh, she is noways 
like the same girl she used to be. Body or mind, be it which 
it may, or both, she is amiss, and far amiss somehow.” 

“ It is some time, then, that she has been in the state that 
she is ? ” asked Lady Farnleigh. 

“ Yes, a spell now, ever since that silly business of a match 
between Miss Margaret and Freddy Falconer, ugh ! ” grunted 
Mr. Mat, with an expression of infinite disgust. 

“ Ever since the announcement of her sister’s engagement,” 
said Lady Farnleigh, musingly. “ It has clearly nothing 
to do then with the discovery of her cousin’s marriage, and 
of the existence of a male heir to the property ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing ; nothing at all. That is what I say ; it 
came before all that.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 445 

And there has been nothing to which yon could attribute 
it nothing has happened nothing of any sort ? ” 

“ Nothing that I can think of, and I am sure I never thought 
so much about anything before in my life, as I have thought 
about that. There was that affair at Sillmouth — at Pendle- 
ton’s cottage; but there was nothing in that, so far as I 
can see, to make her out of sorts.” 

“ Oh, by-th e-bye ! Tell me all about that story ; it all 
happened, you know, after I went away.” 

“Well, there was nothing, as it turned out, to make Kate 
vex herself. It seems that Pendleton’s boat, the Saucy Sally 
he called her, you know, poor fellow ! — she was a beautiful 
boat as ever swam, and she’s gone the way of all Sallys, 
however saucy they be, now — well, the Saucy Sally was going 
to make a run from t’other side one night, with a big cargo, 
and the men were determined to make a fight of it if they 
were meddled with, the stupid blockheads ! And poor Winny 
Pendleton got wind somehow, that the cutter — Ellingham’s 
vessel, the Petrel, you know — would be on the look-out for 
them. So poor Winny was frightened out of her wits — 
natural enough ! — and off she starts one terrible blustering 
night to walk up to the Chase, all a’purpose to beg Kate 
to try and persuade Ellingham — he was up at the Chase that 
night, as it chanced — to stay quiet where he was next day, 
and so let the lugger slip in quietly, and no bones broken ; 
a likely story! And Winny must have been a bigger fool 
than I took her for, to think of such a thing. However, 
she did frighten Kate, with her rawhead-and-bloodybones 
stories of what would be sure to happen if it came to a 
fight between the cutter and the smugglers, to such a degree, 
that Kate went to Ellingham and told him all about it, 
one way or another — I don’t know what she said to him. 
Of course he told her that he must do his duty, come what 
might. And we, Kate and I, had to ride over to Sillmouth 
to tell Winny Pendleton that it was no go, and that if the 
men would fight, their blood must be on their own heads. And 
certainly Kate was in a desperate taking about it that night. 
She took it into her head that either Pendleton or Ellingham, 
or may be both of them, would certainly be killed. But 
as good luck would have it, it was a terrible dirty night. 
The Saucy Sally managed to give the cutter a wide berth, 
and there was no fight at all, except with some of the coast- 
guardmen on shore, in which Pendleton got hurt, and a 


446 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


French chap who was with him got a broken head, which 
nearly sent him into the next world. Well, the wounded 
man was carried to the cottage at Deep Creek, and up comes, 
or sends, Winny again, to say that the stranger is dying — 
old Bagstock had given him over, and he could not speak 
a word of English, and Pendleton was away to the Moor, 
and what on earth was she to do, and all the rest of it ; and 
would Miss Kate have the charity to come down to the 
cottage, and speak to the man who was dying, without 
being able to speak a word to a Christian soul ? There was 
no saying no to that. So we had to mount our nags and 
ride over again. And we found the man bad enough to all 
appearance. But Kate, like a sensible girl and a good Chris- 
tian as she is, sent me off for Blakistry to mend old Bagstock’s 
tinkering. And Blakistry managed to set the chap on his 
legs again ; and he was on his way back to France, as I 
hear, in the Saucy Sally, when she was lost. That is the 
whole of the story. And though Kate certainly was very 
much put about — more than you would have thought — when 
she feared there was going to be bloodshed, and likely enough 
lives lost, still, as the matter turned out, there was nothing to 
vex her at the time even, let alone making her miserable 
from that time to this. No, no ; that has nothing to do with it.^^ 

“And you can think of nothing else of any sort?” asked 
Lady Farnleigh, after she had pondered in silence for a few 
minutes over all the details of Mr. Mat’s history. 

“ Nothing at all, Lady Farnleigh. Somebody or something 
did put it into the Squire’s head at one time, that she had cast 
a sheep’s eye on that Jemmy Jessamy of a fellow, Fred 
Falconer, and was breaking her heart over her sister’s en- 
gagement to him. But, Lord ! it was no good to tell that 
to me. Our Kate pining after Master Freddy Falconer ! No, 
that won’t do.” 

“ No, I don’t think that is at all likely. I flatter myself we 
know Kate, both you and I, Mr. Mat, a little too well, to give 
any heed to that story.” 

“ I should think so, and I was quite sure you would agree 
with me, Lady Farnleigh.” 

“ But we are no nearer to guessing what is the matter ; 
and something serious there is,” said Lady Farnleigh, with 
grave earnestness. 

“ Ay, there is, and no mistake about it j sometimes I think 
that it’s all from being out of health.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


447 


“ Well ; I’ll tell you what I will do for one thing — and the 
first thing. We will ride first to Dr. Blakistry’s, and I will 
have a talk with him. You shall leave me there for a little 
time, Mr. Mat.” 

“ Very good, that will suit me very well ; for I want to 
see Glenny about some new glees that our club has been 
getting down from London.” 

So that matter being satisfactorily arranged, they rode di- 
rectly, on reaching Silverton, to Dr. Blakistry’s door, and were 
fortunate enough to catch him before he had started on his 
round of professional visits. So Mr. Mat went off to his 
musical friend, and Lady Farnleigh was admitted to a tete-a-tete 
with the doctor. 

“ Doctor,” said she, going directly to her object, after a 
few complimentary words had been said with reference to 
her return to Sillshire, “ Doctor, I am unhappy and uneasy 
about my god-daughter and pet, Kate Lindisfarn. She is far 
from well. Whether the main seat of the malady is in the 
body or mind, I do not know ; but whichever it may be, I 
equally come to you for help. Is it long since you have seen 
her ? ” 

“ Why, as it so happens. Lady Farnleigh, it is rather longer 
than usual since I have seen Miss Lindisfarn. It is — let me 
see — just about a month, or a little more, since I saw her, soon 
after paying a visit near Sillmouth, to a patient to whose 
bedside she summoned me.” 

“ Yes, I have heard the story of the wounded Frenchman, 
at Pendleton’s cottage. Mr. Mat told me all about it, as 
we were riding in from the Chase this morning.” 

‘‘ Of course your Ladyship has heard also of the very sin- 
gular circumstances which have come to light, with the effect 
of changing in so important a degree, the worldly prospects 
of the Misses Lindisfarn ? ” asked the doctor. 

“ Of course. Yes, I have heard the strange story, as every- 
body in Sillshire has heard it by this time. It is a very strange 
story.” 

“Has it occurred to your Ladyship to consider how far it 
may be possible that the depressed state of Miss Kate Lindis- 
farn’s spirits may be attributable to this sad change in her 
social position ? ” 

“ The idea has occurred to me, Doctor, but only to be scouted 
the next instant. No, that is not it. We must seek again. 
In the first place, all my knowledge of Kate’s character — 


448 


LINDISPARN CHASE. 


and it is a life-long knowledge, remember, Doctor — would lead 
me to say that such a misfortune would not affect her in such 
a manner. It is a misfortune, a great misfortune. Of course 
Kate would feel it as such. But she would not pine or fret 
over it. It is not in her nature, I feel perfectly sure of it. 
But, in the second place, it cannot be that your conjecture 
is the true one, for another and a perfectly decisive reason. 
The effect was in action before the existence of the cause to 
which your suggestion would assign it. Kate’s sad loss of 
spirits and of healthy tone, was remarked on at the Chase 
a month ago or more ; and this sudden change of fortune has 
been discovered only within the last few days.” 

Dr. Blakistry remained silent for a minute or two before he 
replied. 

“ I should be quite disposed to agree with you, Lady Farn- 
leigh,” he then said, “ that such a cause as we are speaking of 
would not appear to me to furnish a probable explanation of 
the phenomena in question. But I think it right — under the 
circumstances of the case, I think it right — to let you know 
that you are in error respecting the time at which the know- 
ledge of this sad misfortune may have begun to exercise its 
influence upon our young friend. The putting you right in 
this matter involves the disclosing of a secret which was con- 
fided to me, and which no consideration would have induced 
me to betray, were it not that death has made the further keep- 
ing of it altogether unnecessary. I do not know exactly by 
what means the facts which involve the change in the destina- 
tion of the Lindisfarn property have been made generally 
known ; but Miss Kate Lindisfarn did not first become ac- 

quainted with these facts in the same manner, or at the same 
time. They were known to her and to her sister from the time 
of that visit of mine to the wounded stranger in Deep Creek 
Cottage.” 

“ Dr. Blakistry ! ” exclaimed Lady Farnleigh, in the greatest 
astonishment. 

“It is even so. Miss Lindisfarn is not aware that I am 
cognizant of the fact that such is the case ; but it so happens 
that I know it to be so. The wounded man to whose bedside I 
was called was none other than Julian Lindisfarn, the same 
who is said to have recently perished at sea on his return to 
France ; and Miss Kate was informed by him of the fact, and 
was made fully aware of the bearing that facb had upon her 
prospects.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


449 


And Margaret ? 

“Was equally made aware of the same facts. She was in- 
formed of them at the same time, by her sister, who bargained 
with her dying cousin, as he then fancied himself, for permission 
to share the secret with her.” 

Lady Farnleigh bent her head, and placed her hand before 
her eyes, as if in deep and painful thought, for some minutes. 

“ What can have been Kate’s motive ? ” she said at last, 
raising her head and looking up into the doctor’s face, but still 
seeming to speak more to herself than to him ; “ What can 
have been Kate’s motive for keeping this secret from her 
family, and from me ? ” 

“ The motive of her secresy up to the time of her cousin’s 
departure from England is obvious enough. Doubtless she 
had given the same promise of secresy to her cousin, that was 
exacted from me. It seems to have been his earnest wish that 
it should not be known to his family that he was alive and in 
the immediate neighbourhood. But what her motive has been 
in still keeping silence as to the fact, since his departure, and 
yet more since his death has become known, I cannot imagine.” 

Again Lady Farnleigh remained plunged in deep thought, 
resting her head upon her hand, for a long time. 

At last, suddenly raising her head and speaking with rapid 
earnestness, as if a sudden thought had flashed across her 
mind, she said: 

“ Can you recollect the exact date of your visit to the cot- 
tage at Deep Creek, Doctor ? ” 

“Undoubtedly. I can give it you with the greatest cer- 
tainty. It was yes, here it is,” said the Doctor, referring 

to a note-book as he spoke, “ the date of my first visit to Deep 
Creek Cottage was the 20th of March last.” 

“ The 20tli of March last,” exclaimed Lady Farnleigh, hur- 
riedly searching among a variety of papers she drew from the 
reticule which ladies were wont to carry in those days ; “ the 
20th of March,” she repeated, looking eagerly at the date of 
a letter she had selected from among the other papers ; 
“ Doctor, I think I have discovered the mot cVenigme. I think 
I see it. I thinh I understand it all. You must excuse me if 
I make the bad return for your information of keeping my 
own surmises on the subject to myself. I must do so at least 
till they are something more than surmises. I tliinlc I see it 
all. My dear, dear, darling, high-minded, noble-hearted Kate. 
And then Miss Margaret ! Heavens and earth ! You have 
29 


450 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


no idea, Doctor, how many things this little secret of yours 
explains, or how much it is worth. Have a little patience, and 
you shall know all about it in good time.” 

‘‘ I will bide my time. Lady Farnleigh, with such patience as 
I may. I only hope that the solution of the mystery is of a 
nature to bring back the roses to Miss Lindisfarn’s cheeks. 
Sillshire cannot afford to let them wither away.” 

“ That we shall see, I can’t promise ; we shall see. But I 
am not without my hopes. And now. Doctor, while I am 
waiting for Mr. Mat, who is to come here for me — and I must 
trespass on your hospitality till he does come, for he is my only 
squire — I will ask you to have the kindness to give me the 
means of writing a letter. I want to post it before I leave 
Silverton.” 

And sitting down at the doctor’s writing-table. Lady Farn- 
leigh, scribbling as fast as ever she could drive the pen over 
the paper, wrote the following letter : 

“ Dear Walter, 

“If it is possible, come here without loss of time, on 
receiving this. And if it is not possible, make it so ; I want 
you. Basta! come direct to Wanstrow, without going to Sil- 
verton at all. I got back here only yesterday. I know you 
won’t fail me ; and, therefore, say no more. 

“ Yours always and affectionately, 

“ Katherine Farnleigh.” 

^he sealed it in such haste and flurry, that she burnt her 
fingers in doing it ; addressed it to “The Hon. Walter Elling- 
ham, Moulsea Haven, Korth Sillshire ; ” and then jumping up 
from the table, said : “ Where can Mr. Mat be ? He told me 
he was going to Glenny’s the organist’s. I suppose they are 
deep in quavers and semiquavers. And I want to be on my 
way back to Lindisfarn. If my horse were here, I would ride 
off by myself.” 

“ Here is Mr. Mat ; I am sure he has not suffered himself to 
be detained from his allegiance long, Lady Farnleigh.” 

“ No, indeed ! and I am very rude ; but the fact is, Dr. Bla- 
kistry, that since I flatter myself that I have discovered what 
I was in search of when I came here, I am in a very great 
hurry to go and test my nostrum. Can’t you sympathize with 
that impatience ? ” 

“I can indeed, and admit it to be a most legitimate one. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


451 


Mr. Mat,” continued the doctor, addressing that gentleman as 
he entered the room, “ her ladyship’s service requires that you 

should sound to boot and saddle forthwith sorry that it 

accords so ill with the duties of hospitality to tell you so, 
but ” 

‘‘We must be off, Mr. Mat ; I want to get back to Lindis- 
farn.” 

“ I thought your Ladyship had ever so many things to do 
in Silverton ? ” said Mr. Mat, staring. 

“ All that remains to be done now, however, is to put this 
letter in the post ; wo will ride by the post-office, and if you 
are for a good gallop up from the Ivy bridge to the lodge gate, 

I am quite disposed for it.” 

“With all my heart. Lady Farnleigh. Any pace you like, 
once we are down the steep Castle Head, to the bridge.” 

“ I have heard a queerish thing since I came into the town. 
Lady Farnleigh. It reached my ears by an odd chance, and I 
hardly know what to make of it,” said Mr. Mat, as they were 
walking their horses down the steep pitch of hill above 
mentioned. 

“ Anything with reference to these sad affairs at Lindisfarn ? ” 
said Lady Farnleigh, to whom any other Silverton gossip was 
just then altogether uninteresting. 

“Why, I hardly know; I can’t help fancying that it has 
reference to some of us up at the Chase, Lady Farnleigh,” re- 
plied Mr. Mat, with a shrewd glance at his companion’s face. 
“ But you shall judge for yourself. When I went into Glenny’s 
the organist’s just now, I found old Wyvill the verger in his 
room. ‘ Here’s the man that can tell us,’ cried Glenny, mean- 
ing me. I saw with half an eye that old Wyvill was vexed, 
and that Glenny was letting some cat or other out of the bag’ ; 
but it was too late then to put her in again. ‘ Tell you what ? ’ 
said I. ‘Why this,’ said Glenny. ‘Was Hr. Lindisfarn ex- 
pected to dinner up at the Chase last Friday ? ’ ‘ Hot that I 

know of,’ said I ; ‘ and I certainly should have known if he had 
been.’ ‘ There now ! I thought as much ; ’ said Glenny. ‘ Why, 
what about it,’ said I. ‘Well, it is this,’ said Glenny, without 
paying any heed to old Gaffer Wyvill’s signs and winks ; 
‘Jonas at the Lindisfarn Arms,’ — that is the post-boy. Lady 
Farnleigh, who is cousin, or nephew, one or the other, to the 
old verger — ‘ Jonas,’ says he, ‘ has been telling my old friend 
here that he was ordered by Mr. Frederick Falconer to take a 
chaise and pair that evening round to the door in the Doctor’s 
29—3 


452 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


garden wall, that opens into the Castle Head Lane ; and if he 
met anybody who asked questions, he was to say that he was 
going to take the Doctor up to the Chase to dinner. Well, he 
was doing as he was ordered, was coming along the Castle 
Head Lane just at six o’clock, which was the time he was told 
to be there, when he met old Gregory Greatorex, Falconer’s 
confidential clerk, who sent him back all of a hurry, telling 
him that the chaise was not wanted for that night. Looks 
queer, don’t it?’ said Glenny. ‘Very queer,’ said I. As if 
all Sillshire did not know that the Squire dines at half-past 
five, too. ‘ I hope you gentlemen won’t go for to get a poor 
boy into a scrape,’ said old Wyvill; ‘he did not mean any harm 
by telling me, as we was having a bit of gossip over a mug of 
beer.’ ‘ Never fear,’ said I ; ‘ the boy, as you call him — he’s 
sixty if he is a day — shall come to no harm.’ Now what does 
your Ladyship think of that ? ” concluded Mr. Mat, looking up 
with another of his shrewd twinkling glances. 

“ Upon my word, Mr. Mat, I hardly know ; was Margaret 
at her uncle’s on that day ? ” 

“ Yes, she was ; and has been there a deal more than at 
home lately.” 

“Was she to sleep there that night?” pursued Lady Farn- 
leigh. 

“ Yes, and did sleep there ! ” said Mr. Mat. 

“It is very odd ! ” said Lady Farnleigh. 

“ I see that your Ladyship has taken the same notion into 
your head that came into mine,” said Mr. Mat. 

“What was that, then? ” said Lady Farnleigh, smiling, and 
looking archly at Mr. Mat in her turn. 

“ Why, what does a postchaise, at a back door in a bye lane 
on a dark night where a young lady is living, mostly mean ? ” 
said Mr. Mat. 

It must be owned that it looks very like an elopement, dans 
les regies said the lady; “but I confess that that is an indis- 
cretion which I should not have suspected either the gentleman 
or the lady of, in this case.” 

“ It seems one or both of them thought better of it, anyway ! ” 
returned Mr. Mat. 

“ When was the claim put forward on behalf of Julian Lin- 
disfarn’s child first heard of in Silver ton ? ” 

“ Old Slowcome heard of it from Jared Mallory, the attorney 
at Sillmouth, that same afternoon,” replied Mr. Mat. 

“Humph,” said Lady Farnleigh, musingly, as she coupled 


LINDISFAHN CHASE. 


453 


this fact with the information she had just been put in pos- 
session of respecting the date of Margaret’s knowledge of the 
true state of the case concerning her cousin. 

“ What does your Ladyship make out of it ? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know ; we shall see. But I am almost in- 
clined to think, Mr. Mat, that I can make out of it, that it was 
a great pity Mr. Gregory Greatorex did not abstain from 
meddling with Jonas Wyvill the postboy,” said her ladyship, 
with a queer look at Mr. Mat. 

Mr. Mat’s bright black eyes twinkled like two bits of live 
fire, and a rather grim smile mantled gradually over the hard 
features of his seamed face, as he answered. 

“ What, let ’em do it, ’twould have served Jemmy Jessamy 
right, if that was what he was up to.” 

“ I am never for separating two young and ardent hearts, if 
it can anyway be avoided. Don’t you agree with me, especially 
in cases where one may say with the poet, ‘ Sure such a 
pair were never seen, so justly formed to meet by nature,’ eh, 
Mr. Mat?” 

“Young and ardent hearts be stuck on the same skewer, 

the way they do in the valentines,” cried Mr. Mat, with an ex- 
pression of intense disgust. “ I can’t say that I can make it 
out. Lady Farnleigh ; they are not the sort, not if I know any- 
thing about them,” added he. 

Well, perhaps we shall understand it better, by-and-bye, 
Mr. Mat,” returned Lady Farnleigh. 

And as they reached the Ivy bridge and the bottom of the 
hill, while she was speaking, with the long ascent towards 
Lindisfarn before them, they put their horses into a gallop, 
and did not draw rein till they were at the lodge gates. 


END OF PART XIV. 


454 


tIHDISfARN CHASE. 


^^ait jFifteentf). 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

MR. SLOWCOME GOES TO SILLMOUTH, AND TAKES NOTHING 
BY HIS MOTION. 

Dr. Lindisfarn and Mr. Sligo gained nothing by their ex- 
cursion to Chew ton. Their researches were equally fruitless 
on the special objects of both gentlemen. The evident pri- 
ority which the Doctor gave to his archaeological investigations, 
was a matter of the most intense astonishment, and almost, one 
may say, of scandal, to Mr. Sligo. That an elderly gentleman 
in the possession of his senses, so nearly interested as Dr. 
Lindisfarn was in the result of the examinations which he (Mr. 
Sligo) was there for the purpose of making, should utterly fail 
to take any rational interest in the matter, manifestly in conse- 
quence of his being wholly absorbed by his anxiety to discover 
the meaning of certain syllables which in all probability 
had no meaning at all, and at all events none that could 
be supposed to affect the title of any human being to any 
amount of property real or personal, was a phenomenon so new, 
so wholly unaccountable to Mr. Sligo, and so distasteful to him, 
that it made him cross with the Doctor. He began to think 
that the admission that the old Canon was in the perfect pos- 
session of his senses, was an assumption not warranted by the 
facts in evidence. The Doctor on his part was revolted by his 
companion’s evident want of interest in the whole question of 
the mysterious inscription ! and the cursory and impatient 
attention which was all that he could induce him to accord to 
it. He looked at the wooden panel in question, tapped it with 
his knuckles, stared at the Doctor’s request at the inscribed 
letters, and declared that, as far as he could see, there never 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 455 

had been any others ; at all events his eyes could see no traces 
of any such. 

“And now, Mr. Mallory,” he said to the old clerk, who 
having* accompanied the two gentlemen to the church had been 
standing by, impassible and grave as a judge, while this 
examination was in progress ; “ and now, Mr. Mallory, if 
Dr. Lindisfarn is satisfied that there is nothing more to be 
discovered here, we will with your leave return to your house, 
and resume the subject on which we were speaking.” 

“ As Dr. Lindisfarn pleases,” said the old clerk, gravely ; 
“but he, as it is reasonable to suppose, knew the late Mr. 
Mellish as well as I did, and in any case I have nothing more 
to tell about him.” 

“ You admit that the church registers were at one period 
kept at your house ? ” 

“ I have told you that such was the case, since you expressed 
curiosity upon the subject. There was no question of admitting 
one way or the other in the matter, Mr. Sligo. I have nothing 
to admit or deny on the subject. The books were at one time 
kept at my house, not because it was my house, but because it 
was the clergyman’s lodging. I had nothing to do with the 
bringing of them there, or with the taking of them back again 
to the church. The responsibility for the custody of them fay 
with the parson, and not with the clerk, as you no doubt are 
well aware, Mr. Sligo.” 

“ Well, well, never mind whether it is admitting or stating ; 
you say that the registers were subsequently taken back to the 
church ? ” 

“ You speak of registers. Sir ; but I have no recollection of 
having seen more than one book, and that not a very big one. 
During the latter years of Mr. Mellish’s life that book used to 
be kept in the vestry.” 

“ And was always at hand there, I suppose, when needed ? ” 

“ I suppose so. Sir ; but it was often for months at a time 
together that it was never needed. We don’t bury, marry, 
or christen every day out on the Moor here, as you people do in 
the towns ! ” 

“ When was the last time that you have any recollection of 
having yourself seen the book, Mr. Mallory ? ” asked Sligo. 
“ How long before the death of Mr. Mellish, now, had you a 
death or a burial or a christening ? ” 

“ I could not at all undertake to say when I saw the book 
last. Old Farmer Boultby, of the Black Tor farm, out towards 


456 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


the coast, was, I think, the last parishioner buried by Mr. 
Mellish, a month or so maybe before his own death. Whether 
his burial was registered or not I can’t say ; nor whether it 
was done at the time of the ceremony or not. Very often the 
curate would put the entries into the register afterwards.” 
Further cross- questioning of the old man only obtained from 
him that he “could not say how long afterwards — at any 
convenient time — he did not mean by that to say when the 
curate was sober ; though it might be that sometimes he 
was not altogether so at the time of the performance of the 
function. 

In short, all that Mr. Mallory could recollect were circum- 
stances tending to show that the whole ecclesiastical admini- 
stration of the parish was in the greatest possible disorder in 
every respect, in the old times when Mr. Mellish was curate, 
near ten years ago ; and he could not recollect any single fact 
which could help to fix the existence of the missing register at 
any ascertained date or place. He could remember, however, 
perfectly well that when Mr. Partloe, who succeeded Mr. Mellish 
in the curacy, came, there was no book to be found, and Mr. 
Partloe had procured a new one. Mr. Partloe was a very 
different sort of gentleman from Mr. Mellish ; very particular, 
arid very regular. The new book was always kept in the 
vestry, was there now. They were still without any proper 
chest at Chewton ; but the new register was from the time of 
Mr. Partloe’s coming, always kept in a little cupboard in the 
vestry, which he had caused to be put up at his own expense. 
Mr. Partloe had been curate only four years. The register 
book had been kept with the most perfect regularity all that 
time ; as it had indeed by the present curate, Mr. Bellings, who 
had succeeded Mr. Partloe. Mr. Bellings was not at home, 
having ridden over that morning to Silverton. Dr. Lindisfarn 
and Mr. Sligo must have met him, had they not come by the 
other road, which alone was passable for wheels. But it would 
be easy to obtain an opportunity of examining the new register, 
which had been kept from the time of the death of Mr. Mellish. 
Very easy, no doubt ; and altogether useless as regarded the 
business in hand. 

What search had been made for the missing register by 
Mr. Partloe when he came there after Mr. Mellish’s death, 
Mr. Mallory could not say ; but felt certain that Mr. Partloe 
must have exhausted every means for finding it, as he was 
such a very particular gentleman. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


457 


Had the old book never been needed in all these ten years, 
Mr. Sligo asked, — had nobody in all that time required to refer 
to it for the establishment of any of the facts of which it con- 
stituted the sole legal record ? No, nobody. When folk were 
dead out in the Moor there, nobody wanted to ask any more 
about them. When folk were married they got their marriage 
lines, and that was all that was needed. 

“And your daughter’s marriage lines, Mr. Mallory, — of 
course she had them ? ” asked Sligo, suddenly. 

“ No doubt she had them, Mr. Sligo. Of my own personal 
knowledge I can affirm nothing about it. The whole subject 
of the marriage was a very painful one to me. I would have 
prevented it if I could have done so, without the greater evil 
to my unfortunate child.” 

“ Unfortunate, Mr. Mallory ? ” cried Sligo ; “ Well, I don’t 
know what you may call fortunate, but ” 

“ My daughter was induced to make a marriage, Mr. Sligo, 
to which her position in life did not entitle her ; which she 
was compelled to keep secret for many long and painful years, 
while calumny and scandal were at work with her name ; which 
took her husband from her within a few months of their union ; 
which has ended in leaving her a widow, a widow widowed in 
such a fearful manner, and compelled by duty to her child io 
assert its rights with hostility against a family for whom I 
have the greatest respect, and with a result that is lamented by, 
and is unwelcome to, the whole country side. You must excuse 
me, Mr. Sligo,” said the old man, who had been speaking under 
the influence of his feelings in a somewhat higher strain than 
that of his usual talk ; “you must excuse me if I cannot con- 
sider the marriage a fortunate one in any respect ; and I feel 
confident that Dr. Lindisfarn will enter into my sentiments on 
the subject.” 

“ I am sure, Mallory, your feelings are all that they ought to 
be on the subject. It is an unhappy business. If my poor boy 

were living it might have been different. As it is you see 

ha hum I wonder, Mallory, whether poor Mellish 

could have thrown any light on that singular inscription in the 
vestry corridor ? ” 

“ Not he. Sir. It is little he thought of such matters,” said 
the old man, glancing at Mr. Sligo as he spoke. 

“When was the last whitewashing done, Mallory ? ” asked 
the Doctor, meditatively. 

“ When Mr. Partloe first came here, Sir. He was a great 


458 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


man for whitewash, Mr. Partloo was, Sir ; a tidy sort of a 
gentleman, who liked to have things clean and neat. He had 
all the passage leading to the vestry, and the vestry itself, new 
whitewashed.’^ 

‘‘ It is very unfortunate ! ” sighed the Doctor. 

Very,” re-echoed Mr. Sligo ; who had been mentally re- 
viewing the total failure of his attempts to learn anything of 
the history of the missing register. 

“ Very unfortunate, gentlemen ! ” coincided old Jared Mal- 
lory, with a placid drawing down of the corners of his mouth, 
and softly rubbing his palms and fingers together with the 
action of a man washing his hands with very smooth and 
easily lathering soap. 

And so it came to pass that the Senior Canon and the junior 
partner in the legal firm drove back again to Silverton, having 
accomplished nothing of any sort by their journey. 

“ I am afraid the document will have to be admitted as good 
evidence, as it stands,” said Sligo, alluding to the extract from 
the register in the hands of the Sillmouth attorney. 

“Yes, indeed ! but as evidence of what ? ” returned the 
Doctor. “Any interpretation that can be put upon it must be 
entirely conjectural. And I confess I am at a loss to offer even 
a conjecture.” 

“ It is legal evidence of the marriage, that is all,” said Sligo, 
shrugging his shoulders. 

“ Oh, ah, yes — I see ! ” said the Doctor. 

“ No go ! ” said Sligo, as he entered Mr. Slowxome’s room at 
the office, on his return to Silverton ; “ nothing to be done. 
That old man, the clerk, mute as a stockfish, and sly as a 
fox. Nothing to be made of him. But I observed one thing. 
Sir.” 

“ What was that, Mr. Sligo ? Come take a chair and let us 
go into the matter comfortably.” 

“ No, thank you,” said Sligo, who had acquired a horror of 
getting himself seated at the writing-table in his partner’s 
room, and considered the proposal that he should sit down 
there much as a sparrow might have regarded an invitation to 
hold out his tail for salt to be put upon it ; “ No, I won’t sit 
down, thank you. I must' be ofi*. But I am going to mention 
that I noticed that there was nothing to be seen at Chewton of 
the old man’s daughter, or the child. So I just said, ‘ Is your 
daughter with you, Mr. Mallory ? I should be happy to have 
an opportunity to pay my respects to Mrs. Lindisfarn ; ’ Mrs. 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


459 


Llndisfarn, I said, you know, just so. ‘Mrs. Lindisfarn is not 
at Chewton,’ said he, as stiff and grim as an old woman in a 
witness-box, when she don’t mean to tell you anything ; ‘ she is 
at Sillmouth with her brother.’ Well now, that set me think- 
ing, Mr. Slowcome.” 

“ Indeed ! and what did you think, Mr. Sligo ? ” replied the 
senior partner, with much interest. 

“ Well, nothing for certain ; only a guess ; may be nothing 
in it. What have this woman and her child been sent to Sill- 
mouth for, said I to myself. Jared Mallory is a bachelor, and a 
loose one, and a poor one. The woman’s home is, and has 
been, in her father’s house — a very good house it is — at Chew- 
ton. What is the nature and character of women, especially 
of that sort of women that get led away by such chaps as this 
Julian Lindisfarn seems to have been ? And this led me to 
guess— a mere random guess, you see, Mr. Slowcome — that it 
is not unlikely, if there has been any got-up fraud in this 
matter, that they may think it best to keep the woman out of 
the way, under the care of that precious scamp, Mr. Jared, 
junior. Twig, eh. Sir ? ” 

Mr. Slowcome took an enormous pinch of snuff very slowly 
and deliberately ; and having thus stimulated his brain, and 
carefully brushed away every scattered atom of the dust from 
his shirt-frill and waistcoat with dainty care, answered Mr. 
Sligo’s rapid and elliptical exposition of his ideas. 

“ I think I gather your meaning, Sligo ; you consider it pro- 
bable, — or at least possible, for I am quite aware that you put 
forward this theory as a mere possibility — you think it possible 
that the young woman may have been removed and placed in 
her brother’s charge, from fear that she might be disinclined, 
or only partially inclined, or weakly inclined to engage in the 
fraud, and might perhaps, if judiciously handled, be induced to 
make a clean breast of it, and tell the truth.” 

“Pre-cisely so. Sir. That is what came into my head. 
Think there is anything in it. Sir, eh ? ” 

“ I am not at all prepared to say there may not be. It is a 
very shrewd idea, Mr. Sligo, and well worth acting on. It 
would be very desirable that you should endeavour to see this 
young woman.” 

“ Job for the head of the firm. Sir,” said Mr. Sligo, shaking 
his head. “ You must see her yourself, Sir.” 

“ Why should I do it better than you, 'Sligo ? I am sure you 
have always shown yourself 


460 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“Very good of yon to say so, Mr. Slowcome ; but in this 
case — beantifal woman — don’t you see ? Two sorts of ’em ! 
If she is of the sort to prefer doing business in such a case 
with the junior partner, you understand, Mr. Slowcome, why 
then she is not of the sort that we shall get the truth of this 
business from. If there is to be any hope of that, she must be 
of the sort that would prefer to speak with you on the matter. 
Twig, Sir, eh ? Fatherly dodge — daughters of your own. 
Your entire turn out. Sir, worth anything for such a business ! 
See it in that light. Sir ? You’ll excuse me ! ” and Mr. Sligo 
winked a running commentary as he delivered himself of these 
suggestions, which greatly added to their suasive force. 

I think I catch your idea, Mr. Sligo,” said Mr. Slowcome, 
in a dignified manner ; “ and upon the whole I am disposed to 
think that you may be right. I daresay you are right. I will 
try to see the young woman myself. I do not, I confess, much 
like the idea of being seen knocking at the door of Mr. Jared 
Mallory, junior. Nevertheless, in our good client’s interest, I 
will undertake the job.” 

Mr. Slowcome did undertake the job the next day, driving, 
or rather being driven, over to Sillmouth in his well-known 
carriage, with the large, sleek, well-conditioned, powerful 
roadster, driven by the Arcady Lodge hobbledehoy in livery, 
for the purpose. Of course every man, woman, and child in 
Sillmouth — or at least all those who were in or looking out 
into the street, which comprised the major part of the popula- 
tion — ^became aware of the advent of the great Silverton 
lawyer ; and when the handsome carriage, and the big horse, 
and the hobbledehoy in livery drew up at Mr. Jared Mallory’s 
door, that gentleman was standing at it to receive them. 

“ Mr. Slowcome, upon my word ! quite an unexpected honour, 
I am sure. Will you walk in. Sir ? ” 

So the head of the respectable Silverton firm had to walk 
into the disreputable-looking little den, which his professional 
brother of Sillmouth dignified by the name of his office. 

“ Touching the business of the Lindisfarn succession ? ” said 
Mr. Mallory, when they were seated in the dirty little bare 
room, with the air of a man who had affairs of various kinds 
pending to which the visit of the Silverton man of business 
might perchance have had reference. 

“ Yes, Mr. Mallory, touching the business of the Lindisfarn 
succession,” said Slowcome, and there stopped short, like a man 
in the habit of feeling his way with those he spoke to as 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


461 


cautiously as a skilful pugilist makes his play before his adver- 
sary. But he was not likely to get anything by any such 
tactics from the man against whom he was now pitted. 

“I shall be most happy, Mr. Slowcome, to give my best 
attention to any overture you may be desirous of making,” said 
Mallory, sitting on the corner of the plain deal table in his 
office, and swinging one long leg to and fro in a devil-may-care 
sort of manner, which especially scandalised the sense of pro- 
priety and irritated the nervous system of old Slow, who was 
seated in the one arm-chair the mean little place contained. 

“ Overture, Mr. Mallory ? ” said he, thus driven ; “ I have 
no overture to make. It is not a case for anything of the sort. 
In a matter of this kind, Mr. Mallory, where it will become 

necesssary for an excellent and highly respected family to 

to to open its arms, as I may say, to a new member, to one 

whom none of them have ever before seen, of whom they have 
known nothing, you must feel that it is very natural that in- 
terviews should be desired. My present mission here is there- 
fore to see Mrs. Lindisfarn, and ” 

“ Oh, I see ! respectable family opens its arms by power of 
attorney. Family solicitor — Mr. Jared Mallory — honour to 
inform Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo that that cock positively 
declines to fight ! ” 

“ What do you mean, Mr. Mallory ? ” said Mr. Slowcome, 
staring at him in unfeigned amazement. 

“ It is no go, Slowcome ! ” returned the other, closing his left 
eye, as he nodded at his visitor knowingly ; “ not a chance of 
the shadow of the tithe of a go. Why what do you take me 
for, Mr. Slowcome, to imagine that I should allow you to 
tamper. Sir, with my witnesses in that manner ? ” 

“ Tamper, Mr. Mallory ? Take care. Sir, tamper ! ” 

“ I will take care, Mr. Slowcome, devilish good care. As for 

the expression withdraw it with all my heart, if it riles 

you ! parliamentary sense But Mrs. Lindisfarn is not 

visible this morning, Mr. Slowcome. No, not so much as the 
tip of her nose ! ” 

So Mr. Slowcome’s fatherly bearing, his unblemished charac- 
ter and white waistcoat to match, his shirt and gold buckles, 
and his pigtail were all unavailing, and he had to pack all 
these properties into the carriage with the stout cob and the 
hobbledehoy for driver, to be driven back again to Silverton, 
having taken absolutely nothing by his expedition. 


462 


LINDISFARN CHASE, 


CHAPTER XLV. 

THE FAIRY GODMOTHER AT HER SPELLS. 

As Lady Farnleigh and Mr. Mat were riding up from tlie 
Lodge gates, they met Mr. Merriton riding down the hill from 
the house. 

“ How do, Merriton ; sorry to have been out when you called. 
Found the ladies, I suppose, more to the purpose, eh ? said 
Mr. Mat. 

“ Thank you. Lady Farnleigh, happy to see your ladyship 

back in Sillshire again good morning,” said Mr. Merriton, 

rather shortly ; and rode on. 

“ Better fellow that, than I thought him when he first came 
here ! ” said Mr. Mat. 

“Oh, I rather like Mr. Merrilpn. I quite think that he and 
that quaint little sister of his have been acquisitions to us,” 
said Lady Farnleigh. 

“ Do you remember that day at the Friary, when little Dinah 
Wilkins all but fell over the face of the Nosey stone ? ” 

“ To be sure I do ! I shall not forget it in a hurry.” 

“Well, Merriton behaved well that day — very differently 
from some others that were there. Yes, I like Merriton. 
Seemed to be out of sorts just now, I thought.” 

“ In a hurry to get home, perhaps.” 

Lady Farnleigh and her squire had ridden from Silver ton up 
to the Chase in less than an hour, and they found Miss Immy 
and Miss Margaret still sitting in the dining-room at the 
luncheon table. Kate, as had been so often latterly the case, 
was not there. 

Lady Farnleigh declared that her ride had made her hungry ; 
and Mr. Mat so far derogated from his ordinary habits as to 
sit down at the table, and draw a plate towards him in rather 
an apologetical sort of manner. 

“ So you have had Mr. Merriton here ? Did you give him 
some luncheon. Miss Immy ? ” said Lady Farnleigh. 

“He did not come into the dining-room, Lady Farnleigh, I 


LINDTSFARN CHASE. 


463 


asked him, but he refused,’* said Miss Immy, feeling* that she 
had been rather injured by the rejection of that middle of the 
day hospitality, which she regarded as more especially and 
exclusively her own affair. 

“ I don’t know what you have been doing or saying to him,” 
said Mr. Mat, “ but we met him going down to the Lodge, ho 
seemed quite out of sorts. Have you been unkind to him. Miss 
Margaret ? ” 

“ Really I know nothing about it, Mr. Mat,” said Margaret, 
tossing her head. “ Mr. Merriton’s visit was not to me, nor to 
Miss Immy, indeed, as far as that goes. His business here, 
whatever it may have been, seemed to be of a very exclusive 
nature. And if you want to know anything about it you 
had better ask Kate. I have no doubt she will tell you, and 
explain why Mr. Merriton was out of sorts — if he were so.” 

All this was spoken with a peculiar sort of sourness, and 
with sundry tosses of the head, the observation of which caused 
Lady Farnleigh to bring her luncheon to a rather abrupt con- 
clusion, and leave the room, saying, “ Where is Kate ? In her 
own room, I suppose, according to her new bad habit. I shall 
go and look for her. I want to speak to her.” 

Lady Farnleigh did find Kate in her own room ; but, con- 
trary to her usual habit, she was locked in. The door re- 
sisted Lady Farnleigh’s quick impatient push, preceded by 
no knock. 

“ It is I, Kate. Open the door, darlings, I want to tell you 
all about my expedition to Silverton.” 

Kate came to the door at once, and Lady Farnleigh saw at a 
glance, when she opened it, that her pet and favourite had 
been crying. 

“ What is it, my darling ? ” she said, coming in, and at the 
same time re-bolting the door behind her ; “ what is it, my 
Kate ? All alone ! and tears, tears, tears — you who used to be 
all smiles and laughter from one week’s end to another. My 
child, this will not do. Has anything vexed you this morning, 
dear ? What is this about Mr. Merriton ? We met him, 
Mr. Mat and I, as we came up the drive from the Lodge ; and 
he seemed to be very unwilling to give us a word more than a 
passing greeting. And when Mr. Mat remarked down stairs 
that he seemed to have been all out of sorts, Margaret tossed 
her head, and said in her sharp disagreeable way that Mr. 
Merriton’s visit had not been to her, and that you could doubt- 
less explain all about his being out of humour ? ” 


464 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


Ifc is true, Godmamma ! He came here to me,” said Kate, 
hanging her head in a very penitential sort of attitude. “ He 
would not be shown into the drawing-room, but asked to see 
me, waited in the hall till I came down — for I was up here at 
the time — and then asked if he might go with me into the 
library.” 

“ So, so, that speaks plainly enough for itself, my dear,” said 
Lady Farnleigh, drawing a chair close to Kate’s, and making 
the latter sit down by her, and taking her hand between both 
her own caressingly ; “ I quite understand all about Mr. Merri- 
ton’s visit to the Chase now, my dear ; so I will not ask what 
it was he said to you in the library, bub what was it you said 
to him ? ” 

“ Indeed, Godmamma,” said Kate, looking up sadly enough 
into Lady Farnleigh’s face, but striving to force a feeble smile 
athwart the remnant of her tears, “it would not be at all fair 
to Mr. Merriton to tell the story so shortly. He spoke to me 
in the kindest and most delicate manner. You know how shy 
he is ! He seemed hardly able to speak at all at first ; and I 
was quite unable to give him the least bit of help. But when 
he had once begun he got on better, and I assure you I was 
quite touched by his kindness.” 

“Well, dear! And I suppose his kindness consisted in 
throwing himself, and his hand, and his heart, and everything 
else that is his at your feet,” said Lady Farnleigh, willing to 
get a smile of the old arch and gay sort from Kate by any 
means; but the strings of the fine-tempered instrument were 
unstrung, and could not give back to the touch their old 
music. 

“ That was the upshot of it, I believe, Godmamma. But he 
did it with such good feeling and delicacy. He spoke of the 
change that had occurred to us — my sister and me — apologised 
for venturing to do so on the score of its inevitably becoming 
the gossip of the place, and confessed that that circumstance 
had given him courage to do so at once, what he had hitherto 
not dared to do. But he said it so well, far better than I can 
repeat it. He never supposed for an instant, he said, that such 
considerations could make any difference in my decision on such 
a point, but my family might consider that under the present 
circumstances he was not making a proposal which could be 
blamed on the same grounds, at least, as it might have been 
had he made it previously.” 

“ All spoken very much like a gentleman — as Mr. Merriton 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


465 


unquestionably is. And what did my little Goddaughter say 
in return for so many pretty speeches ? ” said Lady Farnleigh. 

“ Oh ! I told him, Godmamma, you know, that it was out 
of the question. I spoke as civilly — ^indeed as kindly as I 
could.’’ 

“You say, ‘you know, Godmamma! ’ just as if I knew all 
the secrets of that little hide-and-seek heart of yours, my Katie. 
I thought I did once. But there is something there now that 
Godmamma, fairy though she be, knows nothing about. How 
should I know that it was out of the question ? Mr. Merriton 
is a gentleman, and I believe a very worthy man, and certainly 
he is what is called a very good match ; especially so under our 
present circumstances. And I suppose, too, that he wanted to 
have it explained to him a little, why it was perfectly out of 
the question ? Did you say nothing on that head ? ” 

“ What could I say, Godmamma, but that though I esteemed 
him much I did not feel towards him as I must feel towards 
the person I could accept as a husband ? That was in truth all 
there was to be said about it. Was it not, Godmamma ? ” 

“ I suppose so, Katie dear. And you probably had the less 
difficulty in saying it that you had already been called upon to 
say the same thing once before to another aspirant ? ” 

“ Godmamma I ” cried Kate, with a great gasp, while the 
tell-tale blood rushed with tumultuous force over her neck and 
shoulders and forehead and cheeks to leave them in the next 
moment ghastly white, and she began to shake all over like an 
aspen-leaf. 

Lady Farnleigh almost repented of the success of her strata- 
gem, when she saw the excess and genuineness of the distress 
she had caused her favourite. Nevertheless, having gone so 
far, she would not abstain from pushing her test-operation to 
its extent. 

“ Forgive me, darling ! ” she continued ; “ I would not pain 
you needlessly for the world, Kate ; you know I would not. 
But it did not seem to distress you to speak of this other rejec- 
tion. What difference could there have been in the two cases ? 
— unless indeed that Merriton could not have imagined that he 
was rejected on prudential considerations.” 

“But he did not think that ! ” sobbed Kate, with difficulty 
forcing out the words between the hard and quick-drawn 
breathings that were alternately extending and contracting their 
coral-pink delicately- cut nostrils. 

“ That is what I say, my dear,” returned Lady Farnleigh, 
^f) 


466 


LINDIBFARN CHASii!. 


willfully mistaking her meaning, with cruel kindness, I say 
he could not have imagined that.’* 

I mean,” cried Kate, almost driven to bay by the extre- 
mity of her distress, “ I mean that he did not imagine that — 
the others 

“ Oh, Ellingham ! No, it is not in him to harbour such a 
thought of a girl he loved. But it was not so self-evident in 
the latter case. I suppose the answer you gave, dear, was much 
about the same in either instance ? ” 

‘‘ Godmamma ! ” exclaimed the poor girl, in the tone of a 
prisoner crying for mercy from under the cords of the rack. 
“You said,” she added after a short pause, “that that subject 
should not be spoken of between us again.” 

“ At all events, Kate, you must admit that there is a remark- 
able divergence in your mood of feeling and speaking of the 
two events. The account you give me of them is much about 
the same of one as of the other in all material points. But 
yet they appear to affect you very differently. As to Elling- 
ham, I should not have mentioned the matter again, were it 
not that I had to tell you that I must return to Wanstrow 
to-morrow morning the first thing after breakfast, because I am 
expecting him there. He is going to pay me a visit. ” 

Kate kept her face resolutely bent downwards, so that it was 
impossible for Lady Earnleigh to see the expression of it, but 
she could see that her announcement was making her god- 
daughter tremble in every limb. 

“ I thought it best to mention it to you, darling, that you 
might not be exposed to meet him unexpectedly. You must 
prepare yourself to do so ; for of course it can hardly be but 
that he will come over to the Chase.” 

“ I do not think that he will come here, Godmamma,” said 
Kate, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, 

“ It may be so, my Katie. Nevertheless my own impression 
is, that he will come here — it is my very strong impression that 
he will come. It is best, therefore, that you should be prepared 
to meet him, little one,” said Lady Earnleigh. 

“ I should be glad to be spared doing so just yet, if it were 
possible,” she said huskily, for the words seemed to stick 
in her parched throat j “ could I not remain up here, God- 
mamma ? ” 

“ My child, you cannot live shut up in this room. You must 

learn to meet him. And besides what would you do, Kate, 

if he were speeially to ask to see you ? 


LINDISPARN CHASE. 


467 


Oil, Godmamma ! It is. quite out of the question that 
he should do . that, quite ! ” said Kate, in somewhat stronger 
tones. 

“ I do not think so, my dear. On the contrary, I think it 
extremely probable that he will want to speak to you.” 

“ I cannot fancy that he would do such a thing, Godmamma. 

You do not know what makes you think that he is likely 

to do so ? ” 

“ Simply my knowledge of his character, my dear. I have 
known Walter Ellingham all his life. I love him nearly, if not 
quite as well as I do you, my pet ; and if I am not mistaken in 

him, he will come here, and will want to speak to you so 

you had better, as far as may be, make up your mind as to 
what you will say to him in return.” 

“ But what can he want to say to me, Godmamma ? ” said 
Kate, while her cheeks tingled, and she dropped her face yet 
more upon her bosom. For the slightest shadow of a shade 

of disingenuousness was new and painful to her ; and the 

truth was, that Kate knew very well what it was that her 
godmother supposed Walter Ellingham might have to say to 
her. 

“ My notion is, my dear, that he will want to ask you yet 
once again, before giving up aU hope, whether you will be his 
wife. My notion is that he is coming to me at Wanstrow for 
that express purpose and no other ! Therefore, I say again, my 
Katie, that it would be well that you should be in some degree 
prepared as to the answer you will give him.” 

“ How would it be possible for me to give him any other 
answer than I gave him before ? How would it be possible, 
G odmamma ? ” 

‘‘ My dear, how can I answer such a question, when I do not 
know what the answer was, nor what your motive for giving 
it to him was ? It very often is possible for a young lady to 
change her mind, and give an answer to such a question dif- 
ferent from her first one.” 

“ But even if it were possible that I should change my mind, 
even if it were possible that I should wish to give a dif- 
ferent answer, how could I do so ? Could I accept an offer as 
a comparatively unportioned girl, which I refused as a rich 
heiress ? Would it not be to give everybody the right to think 
that the change in my conduct was produced by the change in 
my fortunes ? Oh! dear, dear Godmamma 1 ” cried Kate, hiding 
her face on Lady Farnleigh^s shoulder, ‘‘I do think that^ J 

go—? 


468 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


would rather be burned alive at the stake, than that he should 
think that 

“ Ah ! rather than that he should think it ! It would not so 
much matter about the rest of the world. Well, it may be 
that he have something to say to you on that head. So I won’t 
press you now to decide what answer you should give him, 
before you have heard what he may have to say to you,” said 
Lady Earnleigh, quite sure now, if even she had had any doubt 
before, that Kate’s rejection of Ellingham had been caused 
solely by her knowledge of the fact of her cousin’s being alive, 
and of the consequences of that fact as regarded her future 
fortunes, and by her certainty that Ellingham was addressing 
her in ignorance of those circumstances. “ And now, my dear, 
to change the subject,” continued Lady Earnleigh, “ What do 
you think that I heard, or rather that Mr. Mat heard, in 
Silverton, to-day. It concerns — or at least I am entirely per- 
suaded that it concerns — your sister Margaret ; and yet I would 
give you an hundred guesses to guess it in ! ” 

“ What was it, Godmamma — what did you and Mr. Mat 
hear ? ” said Kate, looking up with genuine alarm in her 
face. 

“ Why simply this ; that a few nights ago — the very night, 
it would seem, before Mr. Slowcome came up here to tell your 
father about your unfortunate cousin having left an heir — Mr. 
Frederick Falconer ordered a chaise and pair from the Lindis- 
farn Arms to take up its station at nightfall at the back door 
of your uncle’s garden, which opens into Castle Head Lane. 
That is all — no, by-the-bye, not quite all — and that the post-boy 
had orders to say if anybody asked him any questions, that he 
was going to take Dr. Lindisfarn up to the Chase to dinner, 
where, Mr. Mat says, he was in no wise expected that evening. 
What do you think of that, Kate ? ” 

“ Why, it looks I am utterly amazed ! But, Godmamma, 

Margaret and Frederick Falconer had papa’s consent, and 

everything ; I cannot understand it. But was it do 

you think ? And why, if so, did nothing come of it ? And 

Margaret oh, it cannot be what we had in our heads, 

Godmamma. It is impossible. There is some mistake. It 
is impossible!” reiterated Kate, as she remembered what 
had passed between Margaret and herself the day before 
that fixed for the suspected elopement. “ And yet again,” she 
Baid, as it occurred to her that it was possible that Margaret 
might have told Frederick the secret according to her compact, 


LINDISFARI^ CHASE. 


469 


that Frederick might have felt therefore that his father would 
never consent to his marriage with a portionless girl, and that 
he might have planned an elopement to avoid his father’s 
opposition. And it suddenly darted into her mind, that if such 
indeed had been the facts, Frederick Falconer must be a far 
more disinterested and noble fellow, than she had ever given 
him credit for being ; and yet, almost at the same instant, there 
shone clear across her mind the conviction that it could not be ; 
that Freddy Falconer was in reality Freddy Falconer, and not 
another ; and the whole story seemed utterly unintelligible to 
her. “ But at all events nothing came of it,” continued she, 
looking into Lady Farnleigh’s face ; “how is that to be 
accounted for ? ” 

“ I confess that it is all very unaccountable ! ” returned Lady 
Farnleigh ; “ but as for the coming to nothing of the scheme, 
whatever it may have been, the same gentleman calmed the 

storm who had raised it ; that is to say, dismissed the post- 

chaise. Or at least it was dismissed by the confidential clerk of 
the bank, Mr. Mat says.” 

“ But that might have been old Mr. Falconer’s doing, you 
know, Godmamma ; old Mr. Falconer may have found it out, 
and put a stop to it.” 

“Humph!” said Lady Farnleigh. “What may have been 
the gentleman’s motive,” she added, after a pause, “ either in 
planning such an escapade or in abandoning it, I cannot pre- 
sume to guess. But what about Margaret ? She of course, 
knew nothing, so soon as that, of the change of fortune that 
was hanging over her ? ” added her ladyship, looking shrewdly 
into Kate’s face as she spoke. “ What should we have to think 
of her, if it were possible to suppose that she had obtained 
knowledge of the facts ? Of course you had heard no word 
that could lead you to imagine that such a plan was in contem- 
plation ? ” said Lady Farnleigh, looking into Kate’s face, which 
was burning with painful blushes that her companion’s words 
respecting the possibility of Margaret’s knowledge of the 
secret had called into it. It was a comfort to her to be able to 
say frankly, in reply to the last question of her godmother, 
that no syllable of the kind had reached her ears ; and that 
the whole thing seemed to her so improbable and incompre- 
hensible, that she still thought there must be some mistake 
about it. 

“ Suppose,” said Lady Farnleigh slowly, and looking at Kate 
as she was speaking, “ suppose that Margaret had in some way 


470 


LINDISFAM CHASE. 


obtained a knowledge of the fatal secret, and was therefore 
willing to consent to an elopement, in order that the marriage 
might be made irrevocably before that knowledge reached other 
people. And suppose that it did reach the gentleman just as 
he was on the point of starting ? ” 

“ Good heavens, Lady Farnleigh, but that would be to suppose 

Margaret guilty of conduct too dreadful to be possible 1 

and it would make out Frederick Falconer to be a great deal 
worse than I have ever thought or think him.’^ 

“ Well, my dear, I hope you may be right ; we shall see. 
But as regards Margaret, Kate, which is what most interests 
us ; does it not appear to you that the conduct which you 
stigmatise as too atrocious to be possible, would be but the 
natural sequel to the accepting of an offer at all under such 
circumstances as those in which Margaret was placed, if indeed 
she had a previous knowledge of the important facts in ques- 
tion? Would not this elopement, if elopement there really 
were in question, have been the only means of attaining the 
object which a girl accepting an offer under such circumstances 
must have had in view V ” 

“ But,” pleaded Kate, turning very pale, and feeling deadly 
sick at heart, ‘‘ may we not suppose — is it not possible, that is 
— that she might have been led into the weakness of accepting 
an offer made to her — that is, supposing always that Margaret 
could have known of the secret of Julian’s being alive so far 
back as when the offer was made — ” and Kate’s conscience 
smote her as she spoke the words ; smote her on both sides 
from two different directions ; both for her want of candour 
towards Lady Farnleigh, and for abandoning Margaret so far 
as even to admit the above case hypothetically ; “ is it not pos- 
sible,” she continued, avoiding her godmother’s searching eyes 
in a manner she had never, never done before, “ that Margaret 
might have been led into accepting his offer by the difficulty of 
knowing what answer to make to him ; it would be very diffi- 
cult you know, Godmamma ! ” and Kate remembered as she 
spoke, lioio difficult, how cruelly difficult it was. “ She might 
have been, as it were, surprised into accepting, from not being 
able to assign the real cause for her refusal ; and without any 
intention of suffering the matter to go on, you know, God- 
mamma. Might it not have been so ? ” 

Lady Farnleigh noted in her mind Kate’s hypothetical 
admission, and her assumption that Margaret could not have 
told the simple truth to her lover, forgetting that Lady Farm 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


471 

leigh could not have comprehended any such motive for silence, 
if she had not been informed of all the circumstances of the 
case. Lady Farnleigh, I say, noted all this, and smiled 
inwardly at Kate’s clumsy attempt and manifest incapacity for 
dissimulation. Lady Farnleigh felt that it might have been 
easy, by availing herself of these inconsistencies, to force Kate 
to a confession of the whole truth ; but it did not suit her pre- 
sent purpose to do so. She was contented with obtaining light 
enough to enable her to perceive with very tolerable accuracy 
and certainty the whole of the story. It was pretty clear to 
her that Kate’s knowledge of the facts learned in the cottage 
at Deep Creek had constrained her to refuse an offer which she 
would otherwise, to the best of Lady Farnleigh’s judgment, 
have accepted ; and that Margaret’s knowledge of the same 
facts had led her to act in a precisely contradictory manner ; 
and further, that Kate was prevented from now avowing that 
her knowledge of her cousin’s being alive dated from the time 
it did, by her anxiety to defend and spare her sister. 

And to tell the truth in all its ugly nakedness. Lady Farn- 
leigh was by no means distressed, as she undoubtedly ought to 
have been, at the discovery of much that was base and bad in 
Margaret. Besides the six thousand pounds which she had 
long ago settled on Kate, Lady Farnleigh had a few other 
thousands over which she had entire control, and of which her 
own son had no need. Now what Lady Farnleigh wished to 
do, what it would have been a pleasure to her to do, in the 
unhappy mischance which had fallen upon her friends, would 
have been to add these thousands to the little provision she had 
already made for her darling goddaughter. But she had con- 
scientiously felt that this would not have been doing the best 
she could for the children of her dearly loved friend, the late 
Mrs. Lindisfarn. She felt that it would have been under the 
circumstances to treat Margaret hardly. And she had deter- 
mined that she would virtuously abstain from doing her own 
pleasure in this matter, and would do strictly that which she 
believed to be right. But now, if indeed Margaret had been 
guilty of such conduct as that which seemed to be proved 
against her, that would surely be a most righteous judgment, 
which should assign to her favourite the means which would 
facilitate the union she (Lady Farnleigh) had set her heart on, 
and should declare one so unworthy to have forfeited all claim 
on her. And people like their own way so much, and Lady 
Farnleigh was so strongly addicted to following hers, that — to 


472 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tell the honest truth, as I said before — it was by no means 
disagreeable to the self-willed lady to find that she might be 
justified in following her devices in this matter. 

So, having from her conversation with Kate — a conversation 
which she would fain have spared her goddaughter, if she 
could have done so, but which it was absolutely necessary for 
her to have before she could judiciously say what she proposed 
saying to Ellingham — acquired the information, or rather the 
confirmation of her suspicions, which she needed, she only 
replied to those last words of Kate’s very lame and ineffectual 
pleading for her sister, by saying, — 

“ Well, my dear, it may have been as you say. It is pos- 
sible, as far as we know at present. But we shall see. We 
shall know all about it before long.” 

“And you must think as leniently as you can, dear God- 
mamma, of Margaret, even if it should turn out that she has 
acted foolishly in this matter. The circumstances in themselves, 

you see, are very difficult ; and then you know, ” and there 

Kate paused awhile, as not knowing very well how to put into 
words the ideas which were in her mind, or perhaps not having 

conceived them clearly “poor Margaret is so different, 

has been brought up with such different ways of thinking, 

and we can hardly tell how far many matters would present 
themselves to her under a different aspect from what they 
would to our minds. I do think that great allowances ought 
to be made; don’t you, Godmamma ? ” 

“Very true, my dear; Margaret, as you say, is very dif- 
ferent,” replied Lady Farnleigh, looking fondly at Kate, and 
speaking in a half absent sort of manner, which showed that 
more was passing in her mind than was set forth in her words. 
“ And, by-the-bye, where is she, I wonder ? ” she continued, 
rousing herself from her musing ; “ I must speak to her about 
all this ” 

“ What, now, Godmamma ? ” interrupted Kate, in a voice of 
considerable alarm. 

“ Don’t alarm yourself, my dear, I only want to say a few 
words to her about the match she was about to make, and the 
breaking off of it. It would be unnatural for me to leave 
the house without doing so. Where do you think she is 
now ? ” 

“ Down in the drawing-room with Miss Immy, in all pro 
bability.” 

“I would go down to her,” said Lady Farnleigh, “but I 


I 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


473 


don’t want to speak to lier before poor dear Miss Immy, 

I who would not hear half what \vas said, but would think it 
necessary to take part in the conversation. Could not you go 
down, Kate, and ask her to come up here, just for a chat, you 
know ? ” 

Kate looked rather doubtful as to the task assigned to 
her ; but went down stairs to perform it without making any 
further observation. And in a few minutes she returned with 
her sister. 


! CHAPTER XLVI. 

THE FAIRY IN HER WICKED MOOD. 

Margaret, as it may be supposed, had not been passing 
happy hours since her return home on the morning after the 
abortive scheme of elopement. She was, in truth, very exceed- 
ingly miserable. Blank despair as to the future, ever-present 
; fear of the exposure each passing hour might bring with it, a 
feeling of hostility against and separation from those around her 
! who should have been near and dear to her ; a consciousness 
that she stood alone in the midst of that family who seemed 
; all to feel together, to act together, and to understand each 
other so perfectly ; and lastly, a burning and consuming rage 
and intensity of hatred against the false traitor, who had foiled 
her schemes, dashed down her hopes, and brutally and know- 
ingly exposed her to the suffering, the mortification, the affront, 

the ridicule of such a catastrophe as she had undergone ; 

all these unruly sentiments and passions were making Margaret 
supremely miserable, during those days of hopelessness, and 
yet, in some sort, of suspense. 

Lady Earnleigh’s presence at the Chase had added a new 
source of annoyance and disquietude to all those which were 
tormenting her. She had an instinctive dread and dislike of 
Lady Farnleigh, and it seemed to her as if it were fated that 
I the dreadful exposure which was hanging over her, should be 
made to fall upon her by no other hand. 


474 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


It may readily be imagined, therefore, that when Kate came 
into the drawing-room, where MIskS Immy was sitting bolt 
upright at the table in the middle of the room, tranquilly 
perusing the pages of “ Clarissa Harlowe,” and Margaret was 
sitting on a sofa by the side of the fireplace with a book 
hanging listlessly from her hand, while her restless thoughts 
were occupied on a very different subject, and walking up close 
to the latter, said in a low and rather hesitating voice : 

‘‘ Margaret, dear. Lady Farnleigh is going to leave us early 
to-morrow morning, and she wants, before going, to have a chat 

with you so much has happened, you know, since she left 

Sillshire, and she thought that you would like better to 

come up to my room, where we can be snug by ourselves, you 
know will you come? 

Margaret’s first impulse was to refuse the invitation. . She 
looked up sulkily and defiantly into Kate’s face, as the latter 
stood over her, anxious and ill at ease. 

“ Do come, there’s a dear ! she is so kind,” said Kate, still 
speaking very low, while Miss Immy remained profoundly 
* absorbed in her well-known romance. 

‘‘ Oh, very kind — so kind — especially to me ! ” sneered Mar- 
garet. And as she spoke, the feeling of defiance rose in her ; 
and a feeling that what she dreaded must needs come ; and 
that less of torture and suffering would arise from meeting her 
enemy and doing battle on the spot, than from suspense, and 
fear, and the consciousness of appearing to be afraid — a feeling 
very similar to that of an animal hunted till it turns at bay 
— ^took possession of her, and she added, “ Yes, I will come ! 
It will be the sooner over.” 

And getting up from the sofa as she spoke, and flinging the 
volume in her hand on the place from which she had risen, she 
drew herself up slowly, and as if lazily, to her full height, and 
stalked haughtily and sullenly to the door. 

Kate followed, not a little dismayed at these indications of 
her sister’s state of mind, and looking forward with anything 
but pleasure to her share in the coming interview. It was no 
small relief to her, therefore, when, as she was following her 
sister up the stairs, the latter suddenly turned, and with 
lowering brow, said : 

“ Lady Farnleigh is in your room you said, I think? ” 

“ Yes, in my room, Margaret. She is waiting for us there.” 

“ But if I am to be lectured, I prefer that it should not be 
done before lookers-on. You saw her by yourself, and have 


LINDISFAM CHASE. 


475 


: made good your own story. I will see her alone too, if I am 
I to see her at all. I will go into my room, and she may come to 
‘ me there : or if you like to be shut out of your room for a few 
minutes, I will go to her there.’^ 

“ To lie sure, Margaret, if you wish it ! You can go into my 
room. I will not come ; I will go down stairs to Miss Immy,’’ 
said Kate, absolutely cowed and frightened by Margaret’s tone, 
and the haughty, lowering scowl that sate upon her brow. 

I It was impossible that the grace and beauty of movement 
I assured by Margaret’s perfect figure and bearing should ever 
be absent from her. And as she entered Kate’s room, with 
bold defiance in her large, dark, open eyes and in the carriage of 
her head and neck, with sullen but haughty displeasure on her 
beautiful brow, there was something grandly tragic in her 
; whole appearance worthy of the study of a Siddons. Lady 
Farnleigh could not help looking at her with a glance in which 
a certain measure of admiration mingled with her disapproval 
and dislike. And Margaret, as she entered, eyed her enemy — 
as she was determined to, and was, perhaps, partly justified in 
considering her — with the look with which a toreador may be 
supposed to regard his adversary in the ring. 

“ Thank you for coming up to me, Margaret,” said Lady 
Farnleigh ; “ I thought that we could have a little talk about 
all this untoward business more comfortably up here than in 
the drawing-room. Is not Kate coming ? ” she added, as Mar- 
garet closed the door behind her. 

“ No, Lady Farnleigh, she is not ! I told her that if you had 

anything to say to me about matters that concern me only, 

I chose, if I heard it at all, to hear it alone.” 

And the tall, slender figure, in its black silk dress, remained 
standing — in an attitude that might have become Juno in her 
wrath — in front of Lady Farnleigh. 

The latter raised her eyes to the pale, handsome, lowering 
face, with an expression of surprise in them, and gazed at her 
fixedly for a moment or two, before saying : 

. Well, perhaps you were right; perhaps it will be better 

so You spoke as if you had doubted, Margaret, 

whether you would consent to talk with me at all upon the 
events that have been happening here. It would be very 
reasonable that you should have such a feeling as regards any 
stranger — anyone out of your own family — except myself. 
Perhaps I ought to recal to you the facts that give me a right 
to consider myself entitled to such exception.” 


476 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ Yes, Lady Farnleigh ; I should like to hear that ! ” replied 
Margaret drily, and all but insolently. 

“When your dear and admirable mother died, Margaret,’* 
returned Lady Farnleigh, after holding her hand before her 
eyes for a moment of thoughtfiilness, “ leaving you and Kate 
motherless infants, I promised her to act a mother’s part 
towards you as far as should be possible. I have done so as 
regards your sister to the utmost of my power, with your good 
father’s sanction and approval, ever since. I have, as you 
know, had no opportunity of keeping my promise to your 
mother as regards yourself, hitherto. But now that circum- 
stances have brought you back among us, and more especially 
now that a second series of unforeseen and unfortunate occur- 
rences have unhappily changed the brilliant prospects that were 

before you, it would be a great grief to me if anything either 

in your conduct, or your will should prevent me from being 

to you what I trust I have always been to Kate.” 

For an instant the latter words suggested to Margaret’s 
mind the possibility that Lady Farnleigh meant to tell her 
that if she was a good girl, there should be six thousand 
pounds for her also, as well as for Kate. But a moment’s 
consideration convinced her that if Lady Farnleigh had more 
money to leave, it would be all for Kate ; and even if she had 
been inclined to suppose that the chance of such a piece of 
good fortune was before her, her imperious temper, and the 
spirit of defiant rebellion which seemed to her to be her only 
refuge in the storms that were about to break over her, were at 
that moment too strongly in, the ascendant, and too entirely 
had possession of her soul, for it to have been possible for her 
to suppress them, even for the sake of securing it. The utmost 
she could bring herself to do, was to say, with sullen majesty, 
and without taking a seat : 

“ What was it you wished to say to me. Lady Farnleigh ? ” 

Kate’s fairy godmother, though one of the kindest and 
lovingest natures in existence, was not endowed with a very 
meek or long-enduring temper ; and Margaret’s sullen and 
evidently hostile manner and words were rapidly using up the 
small stock of it remaining on hand. So Lady Farnleigh 
replied, with more acerbity in her tone than would have been 
the case if that of Margaret had been less provocative ; 

“I fear, Margaret, you have been acting far from — judiciously, 
let us say, in the matter of this match with Mr. Falconer, which 
is now, I am told, broken off.” 


LTNDISFABN CHASE. 


477 


“ I must take leave, Lady Farnleigh, to think that I have 
been sufficiently well instructed in all that propriety requires 
of a young lady on such occasions, to make it unnecessary for 

me to consult the opinion of. persons whose authority I 

certainly should never think of preferring to that of the dear 
friends who superintended my education.’* 

“And you think those friends would have approved your 
recent conduct ? ” 

“ I do not see what there has been to blame in it. When 
addressed, in a manner which the ways of this country render 
permissible, by a gentleman whom I was justified in considering 
a good and eligible ioart% I gave him only a conditional assent, 
leaving’ him to seek his definite answer from papa.” 

“ Quite en regle^ Miss Margaret ! But do you think that you 
were justified, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, in 
giving that conditional assent, and sending the anxious gentle- 
man to ‘ask papa’ in the manner you speak of — justified not by 
the conventionalities of this or that country, but by the laws of 
simple honesty and honour ? ” 

“ Simple honesty and honour. Lady Farnleigh ! ” cried Mar- 
garet, while the blood began to mount rapidly in her beautiful 
palp cheeks, and to tingle there very unpleasantly, 

“ Yes, Margaret ; honour and honesty. Was it honourable 
or honest to accept such a proposal, knowing that the maker of 
it was under grievously erroneous impressions as to the circum- 
stances which made you an ‘ eligible ]garti ’ as you phrase it, in 
his eyes ? ” 

“ You allude — rather unfeelingly, I must say. Lady Farnleigh 
— to the great misfortune which has fallen upon my sister and 
me. But you, perhaps, are not aware, having been absent from 
Sillshire at the time, that the proposal in question was made, and 
the reply to it, which you are pleased to criticise, given before the 
facts you refer to were known ; ” said Margaret, still doubting 
whether Lady Farnleigh were indeed in possession of the real 
facts of the case — not seeing, indeed, any possibility by which 
they could have reached her — and determined to fight her 
battle with a bold front to the last. 

“ Margaret ! ” said Lady Farnleigh, in reply, looking her 
steadily in the eyes as she spoke ; “ the facts I refer to were not 
known to Mr. Falconer, or to anyone else in Silverton, at the 
time when he made his proposal to you ; but they were known 
to you ! ” 

Margaret almost reeled under the force of this direct and 


478 


LINDISFAKN CHASE. 


terrible blow. Her first impulse was to bide her burning* face 
with her hands and rush out of the room; but it was only the 
weakness of one moment, In the next she attempted to hurl 
back the accusation which she could not parry. 

“ Honour and honesty ! ’’ she said, with a cold withering 
sneer upon her brow and lips, “ with what sort of honour have 
I been treated ! With what sort of honour and honesty has 
your favourite Kate, and you yourself. Lady Farnleigh, treated 
me ? My sister runs to you with tales which, as far as there 
is any truth in them, she was bound in the most sacred manner 
and by the most solemn engagements to keep secret ; and you 
avail yourself of your position and superior experience to worm 
out from her the means of injuring a friendless girl, whom you 
cannot forgive for having what your protegee never had nor 
never will have. Honour and honesty, indeed ! ’’ 

“ If you had a tenth part of your sister’s honour and honesty 
in your heart, Margaret, it would not occur to you to suppose 
that she had betrayed your secret to me. She is not even 
aware that I know it. But it so happens that I do know that 
you were made acquainted with the error as to your cousin 
Julian’s death, and were perfectly aware of the result which 
that must exercise on your own position, about a month before 
your acceptance of Mr. Falconer’s offer.” 

“ I knew only what Kate knew also — knew nothing, indeed, 
but what she told me.” 

“ Quite true, Margaret. Kate had the same unfortunate 

knowledge that you had, and you both of you used it in 

your own fashion.” 

“ Used it ! Why, what could I have done, I should like to 
know ? I don’t know whether the spy and informer from 
whom you have obtained your information. Lady Farnleigh, 
told you also that I was bound not to divulge the fact of my 
cousin’s being alive — that it was impossible for me to do so. 
What could I do then ? I waited — how impatiently none will 
ever know — for the moment when it would be permitted me to 
tell Mr. Falconer the truth ; and was compelled to content 
myself in the meantime with the conviction that his motive in 
addressing me was not money, and that the discovery that I 
had it not would not change his sentiments towards me.’* 

“And are you still supported by that conviction, may I 
ask ? ” said Lady Farnleigh, unable to prevent a certain 
amount of sneer from betraying itself in her tone. 

Of course I cannot suppose, Lady I’arnleigh, that Mr. FaL 


LINDISFABN CHASE. 


479 


coner can be so base as to dream of retreating from bis 
engagement because it turns out that I may be less richly 
dowered than he had imagined. It is hardly likely that, if I 
could have conceived him to be capable of such conduct, I could 
for an instant have listened to his addresses.’’ 

There was an audacity of falsehood in this speech, which 
provoked Lady Farnleigh into pushing Margaret more hardly 
than it had been her intention to do, when she began the con- 
versation. She could not refrain from saying : 

“But surely your conviction must have been somewhat 
shaken upon the subject, when the gentleman failed to keep his 
appointment at six o’clock, at your uncle’s garden-gate ; par- 
ticularly when you remembered that that sudden change in his 
plans, which left you so cruelly in the lurch, took place just 
about the time when the news of your not being the heiress to 
your father’s acres became known in Silverton.” 

“ It is infamous ! it is shameful ! ” screamed Margaret, 
throwing herself suddenly on the little sofa by the side of 
Kate’s fireplace, and bursting into a flood of tears — ^very 
characteristically feeling the exposure of her having been 
duped and ill-treated far more keenly than the detection of 
her own sharp practice towards another. “You wicked, 
wicked woman ! ” she cried, “ spying and setting traps for 
people, and then triumphing in their ill-fortune. It is too ba,^ 
— too bad. I shall die, I shall die. I wish I may. Oh, why 
was I ever sent to this horrid country and this cruel house ! ” 

And then her passionate sobbing became inarticulate, and 
she seemed in danger of falling into hysterics. 

“ I don’t think you will die, Margaret,” said Lady Farnleigh, 
it must be admitted somewhat cruelly ; “ but perhaps it might 
be better if you had your stay-lace cut. I will go and send 
Simmons to you.” 

And so the executioner of this retribution left the victim 
I writhing, and convulsively sobbing in the extremity of her 
I mortification, and the agony of her crushing defeat. 


480 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


CHAPTER XLVII. 

AT THE LIHDISFARN STONE ONCE MORE. 

Notwithstanding the very decided conviction that Margaret’s 
conduct richly deserved far more severe and more serious 
punishment than the mauvais quart dlieure which Lady Parn- 
leigh had inflicted upon her, the fairy godmother, on rejoining 
Kate, felt rather repentant and annoyed that hers should have 
been the hand, or rather the tongue, to inflict even that 
modicum of retribution. She was evidently “ out of sorts,” 
when she went down stairs and found Kate in the drawing- 
room. 

“Margaret has been behaving excessively ill, my dear,” she 
said, in answer to Kate’s questioning look, “ most ungraciously 
and ill-temperedly to me ; but that is nothing, she has been 
behaving most unpardonably to Mr. Falconer — behaving in a 
manner amply justifying any abruptness of breaking off on 
his part, and you may depend upon it, that he will not be 
remiss in availing himself of the justification. To think of 
her accepting the man, when she knew all about the change in 
her position, and knew that he did not know it !” 

“ Godmamma ! ” said Kate, aghast. 

“ Yes, Miss Kate. Do you think I am a fairy Godmamma 
for nothing ? ” 

“ I cannot smile about it, Godmamma,” said Kate, sadly. 

“ In truth, my dear, it is no smiling matter. I am deeply 
grieved ; and I am sure your father will feel it sorely.” 

“ But, Godmamma,” said Kate, timidly and hesitatingly, 
after a pause ; “ did Margaret tell you she was aware of 
Julian’s secret at the time of the offer?” 

“No, Kate, she did not,” replied Lady Farnleigh, looking 
into Kate’s face with a shrewd glance, half aggressive and 
half arch, “ she did not tell me, but I knew all about it for all 
that.” 

“ You did not tell me that, Godmamma,” returned Kate, a 
little reproachfully j but feeling at the same time, despite her 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


481 


vexation at Margaret’s detection, an irrepressible sensation of 
relief at the reflection that Lady Farnleigh, though she had 
not chosen to say so, must be cognizant of the fact that she 
also was in possession of the same information at the time 
when she had refused Ellingham. 

“ You know then also, I suppose,” continued Kate, after a 
pause of some seconds, “ that Margaret was not at liberty to 
tell Mr. Falconer the real state of the case, when he proposed 
to her ? ” 

“Yes, Kate, I know that too,” answered Lady Farnleigh, 
with the same look, half afiectionate, and half quizzing, which 
her face had worn before ; “ and I admit that the situation was 

a cruelly painful and very difficult one ; or at least, that it 

would have been so to some people.” 

“ Margaret did not know what to do, you see, Godmamma. 
What could she have done ? ” 

“ Refuse him, my dear ! ” said Lady Farnleigh, shortly. 

And then there was silence between them for a long while. 

Lady Farnleigh started, as she said she would, immediately 
after breakfast the next morning, on her return to Wanstrow 
Manor. And at an early hour on the following — the Monday 
— morning. Captain Ellingham arrived there, as she had 
expected. The station to which he had been moved from 
Sillmouth, was on the northern coast of Sillshire, whereas the 
latter little port is situated on the southern side of that large 
county. The distance, therefore, which he had had to travel in 
obedience to Lady Farnleigh’s behest was not a very long one. 
It had so happened that the exigencies of the service had per- 
mitted him to start for Wanstrow almost immediately on the 
receipt of her letter ; and he had not lost many hours in doing 
so. 

I hardly think that there is any necessity for relating the 
conversation which passed between him and Lady Farnleigh on 
his arrival. For the gist of it may be inferred from what 
subsequently happened. And it was, at all events, a short one. 
For it was barely twelve o’clock when he reached Lindisfarn. 

Margaret had declared herself ill, as ill at ease enough she 
doubtless was, ever since her stormy conversation with Lady 
Farnleigh, and had secluded herself in her own room. The 
squire was busy in his study, as he had been for many more 
hours in the day than he was in the habit of spending within 
doors, ever since that ill-boding visit from Mr. Slowcome. 
Mr. Mat was absent for the day. He bad taken a horse early 
31 


482 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. ' 


in the morning*, before Kate was down, and had told the 
servants that he should not come home till the evening, and 
possibly not till the morrow. Miss Immy alone pursu^ the 
even tenor of her way, uninfluenced, though assuredly not 
unmindful of the misfortune that had fallen on the family. 
But that even tenor of her daily occupations prevented her 
from being ever seen in the drawing-room till after luncheon, 
And Kate, therefore, since Lady Farnleigh’s departure, had 
felt unusually lonely and depressed in spirits. 

After having, as soon as breakfast was over on that Monday 
morning, vainly attempted to compel her mind to fix itself on 
her usual employments in her room, she gave up the fruitless 
struggle, and yielding to the restlessness which was upon her, 
strolled down into the stable to try if she could get rid of half 
an hour in the society of Birdie. 

The stables at Lindisfarn were not placed at the back of the 
house, so as to be out of sight to the approaches to it, partly, 
probably, because there was no space there, unless it were 
made by the sacrifice of some of the noble old trees of the 
Lindisfarn woods, which just behind the house came down 
almost close upon it and upon the gardens ; and partly, 
perhaps, because the Lindisfarn who had raised the handsome 
block of buildings which contained them, was disposed to 
consider that department of his mansion quite as much entitled 
to a prominent position as any other. So it was, however^ 
whatever the cause, that at Lindisfarn the stables stood at 
right angles to the front of the house, the front stableyard (Tor 
there was a back stableyard behind, which served for the more 
unsightly portions of a stableyard’s functions,) the front 
stableyard was divided from the drive by which the entrance 
to the mansion was reached, only by a low parapet wall. 
There was a broad stone coping on the top of it, which made 
a very convenient seat for Bayard, the old hound, who was 
wont to lie there on sunny days, with his great black muzzle 
between his huge paws, meditatively, by the hour together. 

It was one of the first genial mornings of spring in that 
south-western country ; the old hound,, whose muzzle in truth 
was beginning to have more grey than black in it, had taken 
his favourite seat on the low wall in the sunshine ; and Kate, 
leaving the stable-door open, had come out to bestow on her 
other playfellow a share of her attention. 

She wfts sitting on the wall in front of the fine old dog, and 

was, in giving him such portion of attention as she 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


483 


could command. It was but a small share, and evidently 
much less than old Bayard was disposed to content himself 
with. For he had stretched out one magnificent fore-arm and 
paw till it rested on Kate’s lap, and he was shoving his cold 
nose into her hand as it rested on the edge of the coping stone, 
evidently bent on recalling to himself his mistress’s wandering 
thoughts. But they were roving far away, and would not 
come back for all old Bayard’s wistful caresses, favourite as he 
was. 

She was sitting thus when the sound of a horse’s feet 
coming in a sharp canter round a curve in the road from the 
Lodge gate, fell on her ear and on old Bayard’s at the same 
moment. The ground fell away very steeply from the terrace 
in front of the house to the Lodge; and that part of the 
bending road which the rider was passing, was hidden from 
the spot where Kate and Bayard were, by a large mass of 
very luxuriant laurustinus and Portugal laurel. Kate’s first 
notion was that Mr. Mat was unexpectedly returning, and 
very hurriedly ; for it was not like him to gallop his horse up 
to the door, and leave him steaming hot. But Bayard knew 
better. The hoof-falls that disturbed his reverie, were, he was 
quite sure, the produce of no hoofs that lived in his stables. 
So he roused himself, jumped down from the wall, and uttered 
a short interrogative bark. In the next instant a horse at full 
gallop swept round the large mass of evergreens ; and in the 
next after, the seaman’s horsemanship of Captain Ellingham, 
aided by the effect of the stable-scent on his steed’s organs, 
brought him to a stand sharply at the spot where Kate and 
her companion were. 

The latter alone seemed to be at all inclined to practise the 
hospitable duties proper to the occasion. After a very short 
and perfunctory examination of the strange horse, Bayard at 
once showed his recollection of Captain Ellingham, and wel- 
comed him to Lindisfarn. But if Kate did not turn and run, 
it was only because her feet seemed rooted to the spot on which 
she was standing. 

“Captain Ellingham!” she said, and could proceed to no 
further greeting, for her tongue clove to the roof of her 
mouth. 

“Miss Lindisfarn,” said Ellingham, dismounting, “I was 
anxiously debating with myself, as I rode up the hill, whether 
I could hope that, when a message was brought you that I was 
here and begging to see you, you would grant me an interview 
31—2 


484 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


or not. Now my good fortune has secured for me the chance 
of at least preferring my petition in person. May I hope 
that, when I have found somebody in the stables to take my 
horse, you will allow me to speak with you for a few minutes ? 
Eor that is the sole object of my coming hither ; and I know 
it will be a potent backing of my request, when I assure you 
that I am here in accordance with the counsel and wishes of 
Lady Farnleigh.” 

“ It is a potent backing, Captain Ellingham,’^ said Kate, 
who had had time to recover herself in some degree while 
Ellingham was speaking ; “ but there is no need of any such 
to make me say that you are welcome at Lindisfarn.” 

A 'groom came out from the stables, and took Captain 
Ellingham’s horse from him, as Kate spoke ; and she was 
leading the way towards the front door of the house, when he 
said : 

“ Miss Lindisfarn, I shall be delighted to see all my kind 
friends here, after I have had a little conversation with you 
alone. It is for that purpose that I have come here, with 
the approval of our dear and excellent friend Lady Earn- 
leigh.” 

“ If she wishes that is, if you think. Captain Ellingham 

that Lady Farnleigh would think I am sure if 

there is anything ” stammered Kate, making, for such an 

usually straightforward speaker, a very lame attempt at any 
intelligible utterance. 

“ When the sentence that has been pronounced on a criminal. 
Miss Lindisfarn, is by any good hap to be reversed,” said 
Ellingham, coming to her assistance by taking upon himself 
the active share of the conversation, which he seemed somehow 
to be much more capable of doing satisfactorily than he had 
been on the last occasion of a tete-d-iete between him and Kate ; 
“ when sentence jipon a criminal is to be reversed, it is usual 
and right that the revised decision should be pronounced, as 
far as may be, before the audience which was present at the 
first. Would you object to walk with me,” he continued, 
meaningly, after a considerable pause, “ through the woods up 
to Lindisfarn brow ? ” 

Kate shot one short, sharp, inquiring glance at him from 
under her downcast eyelashes, as she said, “ If you like I will 
walk with you up to the brow. Captain Ellingham ; but I am 
afraid there can be no reversal of anything that ever passed 
there.” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


485 


“ I cannot submit to have my appeal dismissed without, at 
least, a hearing of the grounds on which it is urged.” 

And then they walked on a little way side by side in silence ; 
till Kate, feeling that the silence was acquiring a force with a 
geometrical rate of progression, as it continued, in that mys- 
terious way that such silences do increase the intensity of their 
significance by duration, and determined, therefore, to break it 
at all hazards, said : 

“ How different these woods are looking from what they were 
when we were last up here together. Do you remember all the 
traces of the recent storm ? ” 

“Yes, indeed : and how the poor old woods had been mauled 
and torn. I hated these fine old woods then ; but I have no 
spite against them now.” 

“ Hated Lindisfarn woods ? And I do so love them ! Why 
did you hate our old woods ? And what has brought you into 
a better frame of mind ? ” said Kate, more quietly than she had 
spoken before. 

“ I felt spiteful against these hills and woods, and against all 
the beautiful country they look down on, because all these fine 
Lindisfarn acres were so many ramparts, and bulwarks, and 
fortifications, all increasing the impossibility of scaling the 
fortress, which all my hope of happiness depended on my con- 
quering on which my hope still depends ! But I do not 

hate the Lindisfarn acres any longer ; for they no longer stand 
between me and my goal.” 

“ Oh, Captain Ellingham ! ” said Kate, almost too much 
agitated to speak, yet dashing out in desperation to defend the 
Lindisfarn acTres from any such maleficent influence; “You 
told me, you know ” 

“ Yes, Miss Lindisfarn ; I told you that I was well persuaded 
that your rejection of my suit, though it was altogether un- 
assigned to any motive, did not rest on any cause of the kind I 
have been alluding to. I was and am thoroughly convinced of 
that fact. And for that reason. Miss Lindisfarn, I should not 
now venture to renew my suit, if the only difference in our posi- 
tion towards each other were that produced by your having then 
been supposed to be one of the heiresses to all this wealth, and 
your now not being imagined to be such any longer. Your 
rejection of my suit was not caused by the wide difference in 
our fortunes, as they were supposed to stand then ; therefore I 
should not be justified in renewing it merely because that wide 
difference has disappeared.” 


486 


LmDlBFAm CHASE. 


“ I am glad you know that ! ” said Kate, very tremblingly. 

“Yes, I know that,” said Ellingham, laying considerable 
emphasis on the verb. “ And therefore I must find another 
excuse for daring to ask you to reconsider the decision you 
then gave me. Miss Lindisfarn ! this is the excuse : — you did 
not refuse me here last spring because you deemed yourself to 
be richly endowed, but in part, at least, because you were aware 
that you were not so. May 1 not hope that that was the real 
deciding reason ? Is that so ? ” he added, after a considerable 
pause, during which Kate could not find courage and calmness 
enough to venture on a reply, although the thoughts and feelings 
which were making her heart beat were assuredly not of a 
painful nature. 

“ Is not that true, Kate ? ” he said, again, whispering the 
last word so lowly that it was barely audible. 

“ It is true,” she whispered tremulously, in a scarcely louder 
tone ; “ but where is the change ? I was then, and am still, 
unpossessed of wealth.” 

“ Where is the change ? why in this, that you knew that I 
then supposed I was asking a great heiress to be my wife — 
you could not explain to me that fact — I know why now. Noio 
we both know all about this terrible secret. ISfoio that at least 
need be no barrier between us. Noiv there is no mistake. 
Now I am asking Kate Lindisfarn, no heiress at all, if she will 
bestow — not all these beautiful woods and fields which weighed 
so heavily on my heart that I hardly dared ask at all before, — 
but her hand, rich only with a priceless heart in it, upon a 
rough sailor, who has little to offer in return save as true and 
strong a love as ever man bore to woman.” 

He had got hold of her hand while speaking the last words ; 
and she did not draw it away from his ; but turned her face 
away from him. And he made no attempt to draw the trem- 
bling little hand he held nearer to him, but let his own follow 
it to where it hung beneath her averted and drooping face. 
And in that position he felt a wet tear fall on the hand which 
held hers. 

“ Have you no answer for me, Kate ? ” he whispered again. 

“ I wish I could have answered before I knew anything about 
the change in the destination of these woods,” murmured Kate, 
very plaintively. 

“You wish that!” he cried, “then this little hand is my 
own,” And he snatched it to his hps and covered it with 
kisses, as he spoke. “ Dear, dearest, generous girl. But do 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


487 


not be selfish iu year generosity, my Kate. Remember how 
much sweeter it must be to me to ask you for your love, when 
there can be no thought — not in your noble heart, my Kate — 
but in the suspicions of the outside world, that I am asking for 
aught else.'^ 

They had by this time reached the Lindisfarn stone, and were 
sitting side by side just where Kate had sat on the day she had 
refused him. 

“ This used to be a very favourite seat of mine ; but I. have 
never been here since,’’ said Kate, without any previous word 
having been said in allusion to any former occasion of being 
there. But there was no need of any such explanation of her 
meaning ; and the mysterious magnetism, which so frequently 
and so strangely makes coincidence in the unspoken thoughts 
of two minds, was on this occasion less inexplicable than it 
often is. 

“But now will you henceforth take it into favour again, 
Kate?” 

“ I wish it was going to remain oitrs,” said Kate, leaving 
Elingham at liberty to understand the communistic possessive 
pronoun as referring to Kate and the members of her family, 
or as alluding to a closer bi-partite partnership, according to his 
pleasure. 

“We will make the grey old stone ours,” said Ellingham, 
accepting the latter interpretation, “ after the fashion of poets 
in old times, and jolly tars in these days.” And he took 
a pocket-knife from his pocket as he spoke. “Now, then, 
I will carve ‘ Kate ’ on the stone, and you shall cut ‘ Walter,’ 
and we will put a pierced heart above them, all in due 
style.” 

“ But I can’t carve, especially on this hard rock,” said Kate, 
smiling. 

“ Oh, I will show you how. See there is my ‘ Kate ’ in 
orthography very unworthy of the dear, dear word. Now you 
must put ‘ Walter ’ underneath it. I will help you.” 

And he put the knife into her hand, and proceeded without 
the least hurry about bringing the operation to a conclusion, to 
guide the taper little fingers to scratch the required letters on 
the stone. 

“ There,” he said, when the word was completed ; “ now read 
it, ‘ Kate and Walter.’ Come, sweetest, you must read it. It 
is a part of the ceremony.” 

So Kate, tremulously whispering, read ‘ Kate and Walter,’ 


488 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


thus pronouncing f')r that sweet, formidable, never-to-be-for- 
gotten first time, the name which was thenceforward for 
ever to be the dearest sound for her that human lips could 
form. 

K. T. A. — Kappa, tau, lambda ! three Greek letters, my dear 
young lady readers : the full and complete significance of 
which, as used to convey a compendious account of the re- 
mainder of the above described scene, may be with perfect 
safety left to the explanation of your unaided intelligences, 
when it has been briefly mentioned that they stand for the 
words ‘‘ and all the rest of it.’* 


CHAPTER XLVIII. 

MR. MAT COMMITS SACRILEGE AND FELONY. 

Mr. Falconer, senior, did not go to Chewton on the Sunday 
as he had purposed. He was prevented from doing so, and 
went on the next day ; — that same Monday on which Mr. Mat 
was absent all day from the Chase ; and on which “ Kate 
and Walter ” held their second session on the Lindisfarn 
Stone. 

Mr. Mat had said nothing to anybody respecting his errand ; 
but the fact was that he also had determined on going over 
himself to Chewton ; — not with much hope of being able to 
effect any good, where wiser heads had failed, but still anxious, 
as he said, to see, if he could, what those Mallorys were up to. 

Mr. Mat had known Charles Mellish, the late curate, well, 
in days gone by ; and to tell the truth, they had, more often 
than was quite desirable — at all events for the reverend gentle- 
man — heard the chimes at midnight together, both in Silverton 
and out at the curate’s residence at Chewton. Music was the 
chief tie between them. Poor Charlie Mellish — for he had 
been one of those men to whom that epithet is always applied, 
and who are always called by the familiar form of their 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


489 


Christian names — ^poor Charlie Hellish had possessed a grand 
baritone voice, which made very pleasant music, when joined 
with Mr. Mat’s tenor. 

Mr. Mat had often stayed for two or three days together out 
at Chewton, in those pleasant but naughty old bygone times, and 
knew all Mellish’s ways and habits, his carelessness and irregu- 
larity ; but knew also, as Mr. Mat was thoroughly persuaded, 
and loudly declared, that poor Charlie was utterly incapable of 
permitting or conniving at any fraud, either in the matter of 
the registers entrusted to his keeping, or in any other. Mr. 
Mat had a very strong idea that the register, which would 
prove whether the propounded extract from it were truly 
and honestly made or nob, must still be in existence, and 
might be found, if looked for with sufficient patience and 
perseverance. 

It thus came to pass that Mr. Falconer, senior, and Mr. 
Matthew Lindisfarn were journeying towards the remote little 
moorland village on the same day. But they were not travel- 
ling by the same road ; nor exactly at the same hour. 

Mr. Mat’s way lay, indeed, through Silverton ; and coincided 
with that of the banker, till after he had crossed the Sill by 
the bridge at the town-foot, and traversed most of the enclosed 
country intervening between the river and the borders of the 
moor. After that, Mr. Mat, being on horseback, pursued the 
same route which Dr. Blakistry had taken on a former occa- 
sion ; whereas the banker in his carriage followed the lower 
road, by which Dr. Lindisfarn and Mr. Sligo had travelled. 

Mr. Mat and the banker might therefore have fallen in with 
one another, had it not been that the former started on his 
journey at the earlier hour, and had already passed through 
Silverton when the banker was still finishing his breakfast. 

Mr. Mat took his ride leisurely ; being much longer about 
it than Dr. Blakistry had been — not because he was the inferior 
horseman of the two — quite the contrary ; Mr. Mat was in 
those days one of the best riders in Sillshire, and could have, 
without difficulty, found his way across and over obstacles that 
would have puzzled the M.D. But he rode leisurely over the 
moor because he so much enjoyed his ride. It so happened, 
that he had never been at Chewton since his old crony Charles 
Mellish’s death. And every mile of the way waked up whole 
hosts of long sleeping memories in Mr. Mat’s recollection. 

The ten years that run from forty-five to fifty-five in a man’s 
life are a terrible decade, leaving cruelly deep marks in their 


490 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


passage, often accomplishing the whole job of turning a young 
man into an old one. And these were about the years that had 
passed over Mr. Mat’s head, since he had last ridden that well- 
known road from Silver ton to Chewton. 

Not that these years could be said to have turned Mr. Mat 
into an old man, either. He was of the sort who make a good 
and successful fight against the old tyrant with the scythe and 
hour-glass. His coal-black, spikey, scrubbing-brush of a head 
of hair, was as thickly set and as black as ever. His perfect 
set of regular white teeth were as complete and as brilliant in 
their whiteness as ever. His shrewd and twinkling deep-set 
black eye was as full of fire and as bright as it had been when 
last he rode that way. And his copper-coloured, deeply seamed, 
and pock-marked face was not more unsightly than it had ever 
been. And Mr. Mat always carried a light heart beneath his 
waistcoat, which is as good a preservative against age as 
camphor is against moth, as all the world knows. 

So he rode through the keen morning air of the moor, re- 
viewing his stock of recollections athwart the mellow sunshine- 
tinted Claude glass which memory presents to eupeptic easy- 
going philosophers of his sort, carolling out ever and anon 
some fragment of a ditty, with all the power of his rich and 
sonorous tenor. 


“ There’s many a lad I knew is dead, 

And many a lass grown old ! 

And as the lesson strikes my head, 

My weary heart grows cold ; ” 

he sang, as he turned his horse’s head out of the main road 
across the moor into that breakneck track, by which we have 
seen Dr. Blakistry pick his way. But the stave was carolled 
forth in a manner that did not seem to indicate a very weary 
or co}d heart in the singer’s bosom ; and Mr. Mat, as he sat 
on his well-appointed steed, with his white hat just a little 
cocked on one side, his whip under his arm, and his hand' 
stuck into the pocket of his red waistcoat, certainly did not 
present to the imagination the picture of a sorrow-stricken 
individual. 

A couple of rabbits ran across the path, startled from their 
dewy morning nibble by his horse’s tread ; and Mr. Mat broke 
off his song to honour them with a view-halloo, that made the 
sides of a neighbouring huge rock — a tor,” in the moorland 
language — re-echo again. 


LINDISPARN CHASE, 


491 


‘^And when cold in iny coffin,” he shouted again; “when 

cold in my coffin Ha ! Miss Lucy ! mind what you are 

about, lass ! turf slippery, is it ? When cold in my coffin, 

I’ll leave them to say, he’s gone ! what a hearty good fellow ! ” 

“El low ! ” said the echo off the gi'ey tor side. 

“ What a hearty good fellow ! ” repeated Mr. Mat, in a sten- 
torian voice, stimulated by the echo’s second. 

The good resolution thus enunciated seemed, however, to 
have been uttered by Mr. Mat, rather in the character of the 
late curate than in his own proper person, for he continued 
soliloquising a train of reflections, which that view of the 
sentiment he had been chanting inspired him with. 

“Yes, he was a hearty good fellow poor Charley! as 

good as ever another in Sillshire — * .not a morsel of vice in 

him not a bit 1 They got hold of the wrong bit of stufi*, 

maybe, to make a parson out of. Poor old Charley 1 He’s 
gone, what a hearty good fellow I How often have I heard 
him sing that. Well ! well I Now he is gone. And we are 
all agoing ! 

‘ And so ’twill be, when I am gone 
Those evening bells will still ring on ! 

Some other bard will walk these dells * 

Hup ! Miss Lucy I what are you about, lass ? 

‘ xVnd sing your praise, sweet evening bells.’ 

And I wonder whether raiother as big a rogue as that old 
Mallory will pull your ropes, sweet evening bells ? There’s 
some devilry of some sort at the bottom of this business. I 

am sure of it sure and certain; but it’s deeper, I am afraid, 

than anything I can get to the bottom of.” 

And with these thoughts in his head, Mr. Mat came in sight 
of the tower of Chewton church ; and, in a few minutes after- 
wards, pulled up at the house of Mr. Mallory, the clerk ; pulled 
up there more because it had always been his habit to do so in 
old times, when Charley Mellish lived in that house, than for any 
other reason ; though, in fact, anything that Mr. Mat was come 
there to do, could only be done by addressing himself to the 
old clerk. But the fact was, that Mr. Mat did not very well 
know what he had come there to do. He had yielded, when he 
made up his mind to ride over, to a sort of vague and restless 
desire to do something, a conviction that all was not right, and 


492 


LINDISFARN CHASF. 


a sort of feeling that it might be possible to find out something 
if one were on the spot. 

It was about eleven o’clock in the forenoon when Mr. Mat 
reached Chewton, and hung Miss Lucy’s rein on the rail in 
front of Mr. Mallory’s door. He knocked at the door with 
the handle of his whip : and it was instantly opened to him by 
the old man himself. 

“Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn ! why ” 

“What has brought me here? you were going to say, 
Mr. Mallory ; after staying away ten years or more ! Well ! 
a little of remembrance of the old times, and a little of interest 
about these new times. That’s about it, eh ? ” 

“ The old times and the new times are pretty much alike, as 
far as I can see, Mr. Mat. A little more rheumatism, a little 
more weariness when one goes to bed, and a little more stiffness 
when one gets up in the morning ; that’s the most of the dif- 
ference that I can see.” 

“Well! there is no jolly, good-humoured, smiling face look- 
ing out of that window over the door up there, where poor old 
Charley’s face used to be, when I rode over, three or four hours 
earlier than ’tis now, mayhap, and he would welcome me with, 
‘ Chanticleer proclaims the morn 1 ’ Does that make no dif- 
ference between the old times and the new ? ” 

“ You don’t seem much changed, Mr. Mat, any way ; ” re- 
turned the old man, looking at his visitor with a queer sort of 
interest and curiosity ; “ you are pretty much as you were, I 
think, coat and waistcoat and all ! ” 

“ Pretty much ; I don’t see that ten years have made any 
great improvement in you, Mr. Mallory. I don’t see a mite of 
difference, to tell the truth.” 

“ I don’t know that there is much, Mr. Mat, barring what I 
told you just now,” said the old man. 

“ And I don’t suppose,” said Mr. Mat, shutting one bright 
black eye, and putting his head on one side with an air of 
curious speculation, as he eyed the tall, grave old man with the 
other, “I don’t suppose, Mr. Mallory, that these ten years 
have made either of us a bit the better or the wiser. I can’t 
say that I am aware of their having had any such effect on me, 
for my part.” 

“ Well, Mr. Matthew, I should be sorry to think that, for my 
part. But then I’m nearer the great account, you know,” said 
the clerk, with a touch of official sanctimoniousness. 

“ So that it is about time to think of making up the books, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


493 


eh, Mr. Mallory ? Well, that’s true. But, bless your heart, 
there’s no counting in that way. Think of that poor young 
fellow lost at sea the other day, — my cousin — a-far-away cousin, 
but still my cousin, Mr. Mallory, and your son-in-law as I under- 
stand, Mr. Mallory. Think of him ! ” said Mr. Mat, thus sud- 
denly bringing round the conversation to the topic which was 
uppermost in his mind, by a bold stroke of rhetoric, which he 
flattered himself would not have disgraced the leader of the 
western circuit, “ there was a sudden calling to account, Mr. 
Mallory.” 

“ Ay, indeed, Mr. Matthew,” said the old clerk leisurely, fold- 
ing his hands in front of his waistcoat, and twirling his thumbs 
placidly as he stood in front of his visitor, in the middle of 
the flagged floor of his large kitchen and entrance hall; for 
the two had by this time entered the house, but the old man 
had not invited his self-bidden guest to be seated. “ Ay, indeed, 
Mr. Matthew, and it’s what they are specially liable to, ‘ who 
go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in the 
great waters.’ ” 

“ Such queer business, too, by all accounts,” said Mr. Mat. 

“Indeed. I am not much in the way of hearing reports 
here,” rejoined Mr. Mallory, very indifferently. 

“Very true, Mr. Mallory; out in the moor here, you know 

But be all that how it may, it is necessary now to see that 

the rights of the child — your grandson, Mr. Mallory, and my 
far-away cousin — are properly settled. That is the feeling of 
all the family; and perhaps it is all for the best that there 
should be a male heir for the old place and the old name,” said 
Mr. Mat, whom nobody, and least of all himself, would ever 
have supposed to have so much Jesuitry in him. 

“Of course Mr. Oliver Lindisfarn, and the Doctor, my 
honoured master, can only wish that right should be done. 
Queer enough that the child should have the rector and the 
clerk of Chewton for his two grandfathers, is it not, Mr. 
Matthew ? I suppose the settlement of the question don’t 
make much more difrerence to either of them, than it does to 
the other ! I have had all the sorrow of the business ; and 

I shan’t have any of the advantage No, not all the sorrow 

either ; for Dr. Lindisfarn had his share too, no doubt ; and 
he will get as little good from it as I shall.” 

“ Of course, of course, Mr. Mallory ; and all you can wish 
is what all the parties concerned wish in the matter, that the 
right thing should be done.” 


494 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“I can safely say, Mr. Matthew, that that is my feeling. 
But, to tell you the truth, I feared, from whac I have heard my 
son say — the lawyer at Sillmouth, Mr. Matthew — that the 
family would make some attempt to dispute the boy’s title ; ” 
said the old man, looking keenly at Mr. Mat. 

“ I am sure the Squire at the Chase has no wish to dispute 
anything that is not fairly disputable,” rejoined Mr. Mat; 
“ but as far as I can understand, there arises some doubt and 
difficulty about a missing register. If that could be found I 
fancy it would make the thing all clear and plain.” 

“ No doubt, Mr. Matthew, no doubt. But how to find it ? 
that is the question. You knew poor Mr. Mellish, nobody 
better ; and you knew his ways. Like enough to have made 
the old register into gun wadding for want of better,” said the 
clerk.” 

“ No ! ” said Mr. Mat, shaking his head very decisively ; 

No. Charley would never have done that. He would never 
have done anything that could bring no end of wrong and 
trouble to others.” 

“ But you know, Mr. Matthew, that half his time he did not 
know what he was doing ; ” said the clerk, with a sad and 
reproachful shake of the head. 

“ No, not so bad as that ! Come, come, Mr. Mallory, don’t 
stick it on to him worse than it was, poor fellow. I have seen 
him with a drop or two too much now and again towards the 
small hours. But not in the morning ; not when there could 
ever have been any question about gun-wadding. No, no ! 
Charley never made away with the book in any fashion, I’ll 
lay my life ! It must have been in existence somewhere or 
other when he died ; and if it could be found it would make 
this child’s rights as clear as day, and spare all further trouble 
about it.” 

It was now old Mallory’s turn to scrutinize his companion, 
which he did to much better purpose than simple Mr. Mat 
had done; observing his features furtively and keenly out 
of the corner of his eye, with a shrewdness calculated to 
detect an arriere 'pensee in a deeper dissembler than Mr. Mat. 

“ At all events,” he said, “ it is exceedingly vexatious that 
the register cannot be found. I have done my utmost long 
ago, as well as recently, to find it. And I shall be very much 
surprised if anybody else ever finds it now.” 

“ Have you any objection to let me go up stairs into the 
rooms he used to inhabit ? I should like to see the old place 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


495 


again for ^ auld lang syne * sake. You know, Mallory, how 
many a jolly night I have passed in those rooms in old times.” 

“ Ay, Mr. Matthew ! it were better if I had not any such to 

remember. They were sad doings ; no credit to the house, 

nor to the parish, for that matter ! ” said the old clerk, casting 
up his eyes in pious reprobation. 

“ I am sure the next parish was never any the wiser for that 
matter. It must have been a roystering rouse with a ven- 
geance, that the silence of Sillmore could not swallow up and 
tell no tales of ! And as for the people here, you know whether 
they loved poor Charley, or were likely to think much ill of 
him, poor fellow, with all his faults. May I go up and have a 
look at the old rooms ? ” 

“ Yes, Mr. Matthew, I have no objection whatever. You can 
go up stairs if you wish it. I will wait on you. But the 
room has been used since Mr. Mellish lived in it.” 

“ Both the rooms he occupied ? ” asked Mr. Mat. 

“No, not both of them. The sitting-room has been occu- 
pied since by my daughter wTien she was here. But 
the room beyond, the bedroom, where he died, has never 
been used since. We have more space in the house than we 
need.” 

So they both went up stairs ; and Mr. Mat, under cover of 
indulging in the reminiscences of his dead-and-gone jollifica- 
tions, cast his eyes sharply about him to see if he could get any 
hint of a hiding-place or repository in which it might be pos- 
sible to suppose that the missing register might have been 
hidden and lost. In the room which had been the curate’s 
sitting-room, no trace of his occupation remained. It had very 
evidently long since passed under feminine dominion, and had 
been, it may be hoped, purified during the reign of the moor- 
land wild-flower from all odour of the naughty doings wit- 
nessed in that former phase of its existence. It was not so 
however in the inner room, in which the poor curate had slept, 
and had died. There everything had remained to all appear- 
ance exactly as he had left it. On a nail in the whitewashed 
wall by the side of the old bedstead, just in the place where 
Roman Catholic devotion is wont to suspend a little vase of 
holy water, still hung the Protestant curate’s dog-whip. On 
the wall opposite to the bed, and at right angles to the window, 
was scrawled in charcoal on the white surface a colossal music 
score, with a number of notes rudely, but very clearly, legibly, 
and correctly placed on the lines of it. The main direction in 


496 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


which poor Mellish’s efforts at discharging his duty in the 
matter of instructing his parishioners had developed them- 
selves, was in attempting to get up a choir, and to teach a class 
of the boys to sing. And this bed-room had been the poor 
fellow’s school-room ; and, the huge score and notes on the 
wall, his lecture board. 

Poor melodious Charley ! He was willing to teach what he 
best knew ; and whether Sternhold and Hopkins supplied all 
the examplars commended to the voices of the ingenuous moor- 
land youth, it were invidious too closely to inquire. 

On another side of the room was a large worm-eaten chest, 
on which Mr. Mat’s eye fell immediately. He lifted the creak- 
ing lid eagerly, but there was nothing but dust and one 

old rusty spur in a corner inside. And a smile passed over the 
face of Mr. Mallory as he let the lid and the corners of his 
own mouth fall at the same time. 

There was no other shade of a possibility that the missing 
volume might be found in the curate’s bed-chamber ; and Mr. 
Mat turned with a sigh — quite as much given to the memory 
of his old friend as to the failure of his present hopes — to 
follow Mr. Mallory down the stairs ; when just as they reached 
the stairfoot the unusual sound of carriage wheels was heard 
outside Mr. Mallory’s door. 

“ I suppose it must be that lawyer come back again,” said 
the old clerk. “ He was here the other day, wanting to find 
this same unlucky register, and he seemed for all the world to 
fancy that I could tell him where it is. As if I would not find 
it if I could ! I know as well as he does — better for that 
matter — that it would set all right. I am glad tliat you 
should happen to be here, Mr. Matthew, when he pays us his 
visit ; he may look where he likes, for me.” 

So saying, the old man went to the door, and there found, 
instead of the lawyer he expected, Mr. Falconer, senior, all 
smiles and bland courtesy. 

“ Mr. Mallory, your servant. I daresay you can guess my 

errand ; and but whom have we here ? Mr. Mat, I declare ! 

Dear me ! Why, Mr. Mat, are you going to enter the lists with 
us ? Have you turned ecclesiologist ? Have you visited the 
church, eh ? ” 

“ No, Sir, no ! we have not been near the church. Mr. 
Matthew Lindisfarn was here upon another matter. What, 
you want to have one more look at the famous inscription, Sir ; 
is that it ? ” 


LINDTSPARN CHASE. 


497 


That is what I wish, Mr. Mallory ; if you will be so 
obliging as to afford me the opportunity of doing so.’’ 

“ Good morning, Mr. Falconer. I know nothing about the 
inscription, and I am not turned any ologist of any sort that I 
know of. But you might guess what brings me here. I 
wanted to have a look with my own eyes after this plaguey 
register. You know all about it, no doubt. All Sillshire 
knows it by this time.” 

“Ay, ay, I understand ; a bad business, Mr. Mat, a bad busi- 
ness ! Truly grievous ! But my little matter is a question of 
some interest between Dr. Lindisfarn and myself and some 
others, walkers in the paths of hoar antiquity, Mr. Mat.” 

“ What, all across the moor here away ? ” said Mr. Mat, with 
a puzzled air. 

“ Yes, indeed. These pleasant paths have led us on this 
occasion all across the moor out to Chewton. And now if you 
like to step across to the church, and if Mr. Mallory will be 
so obliging as to accompany us with the keys, I shall have 
pleasure in showing you the famous inscription which is 
puzzling us all ; and who knows but you may hit upon some 
suggestion that may help us ? ” added the old gentleman, 
patronisingly. 

“With all my heart, Mr. Falconer. I used to know the 
church well enough at one time, years ago. Will you open it 
for us, Mr. Mallory ? ” said Mr. Mat. 

“ I must be going to the church myself in a minute or two, 
gentlemen,” said the clerk, “ for it is time to ring the noontide 
bell. The sexton is a labouring man away at his work ; so I 
always ring the bell at mid-day.” 

“Ah, yes ! I remember it,” said Mr. Mat, “there always used 
to be noontide bell at Chewton. So you keep up that old 
fashion still, eh, Mr. Mallory ? ” 

“ Dr. Lindisfarn would not have it dropped on any account, 
Sir ; and indeed you might say the same almost of a many of 
the older parishioners. They hold to the noontide bell very 
much about here. There always has been a noontide bell at 
Chewton in the Moor, time out of mind.” 

Thus talking, the clerk and his two visitors strolled leisurely 
across the village street, and along the churchyard wall to the 
old-fashioned stile over it, formed of huge slabs of stone from 
the moor — that stile on which Dr. Blakistry had found little 
July Lindisfarn — or July Mallory, as the case might be — sitting 
and speculating on rashers in the coming time. July was there 
32 


m 


LINDISFAEN CHASE. 


no longer, having been removed, with his mother, to Mr. Jared 
Mallory’s house at Sillmouth. 

The clerk opened the church, and admitting the two gentle- 
nfen into the body of the building, betook himself to the belfry, 
to perform his daily duty. 

“ This is indeed a fortunate chance, my dear Sir,” whispered 
Falconer to Mr. Mat, as soon as they were left alone ; “ an 
opportunity I have never enjoyed before. At my former visits 
here I have never been able to examine the curious * relic of 
which I spoke to you except under the eyes of the man who 
has just left us — a creature of the Doctor’s, of course — worthy, 
excellent, good man. Dr. Lindisfarn, I am sure. I have the 
utmost regard for him. But crotchety, my dear Mr. Mat — I 
do not mind saying it to you — decidedly crotchety upon some 
points ; erudite, but de-ci-ded-ly crotchety. Now in the matter 
of this inscription our dear Doctor has formed a certain theory 
— it is not for me to say whether tenable or not — at least not 
here nor now,” said the banker, with a meaning look at his 
companion, which, however, was meaningless for Mr. Mat, “ a 
certain theory,” continued the banker, “ which might most 
judiciously be tested by the removal of a small portion of the 
coating of plaster which covers the ancient woodwork. But 
this I have never been able to attempt, as you will understand, 
in that man Mallory’s presence. Even if he had allowed me to 
do so, which I do not think, any discovery which I could make 
would have been immediately communicated to the Doctor, you 

see; and in these matters one wishes, you know naturally 

you understand ” 

Mr. Mat understood nothing at all. But he very docilely 
followed the lead of the old banker, who, as he spoke the last 
words, had brought him into the corridor leading to the vestry, 
and stopped short in front of the partially discovered panel 
which appeared to be let into the wall under the low orna- 
mented arch, in the manner which has been previously de- 
scribed. There, unquestionably enough, were to be seen the 
mysterious syllables, on which all the Senior Canon’s super- 
structure of learned dissertation and conjecture, was founded ; 

“ TANTi VI TANTi VI TANTi.” And iDoth above and 

below them were the half obliterated remains of figures or 
painted symbols of some sort, which really looked more like 
heiroglyphics than anything else. 

“ There, Sir, is the celebrated Chewton inscription ; ” said 
Mr. Falconer, “and I am bound to admit that I do not think 


LTNDISFARN CHASE. 


499 


there can be any doubt or discrepance of opinion on the reading 
of the letters. They read most undeniably ‘ tanti vi tanti vi 
TANT i/ but the Doctor has never adverted to the probability 
that the letters ‘ v, thus singularly repeated, and especially 
found thus in conjunction with the adjective Hanti, which 
signifies, my dear Mr. Mat, ‘ so many,* — ‘ so many,* ** repeated 
the banker, holding up his forefinger in a manner intended to 
demand imperatively a strong efibrt of Mr. Mat’s mind for the 
due comprehension of that important point — ‘‘the very great 
probability, I say that these letters ‘ -y, ^ * may be simply Iloman 
numerals.’* 

All the while the learned banker was setting forth his opposi- 
tion theory in this manner, Mr. Mat was observing the panel in 
question more narrowly and with a greater appearance of 
interest than could have been reasonably expected from a man 
of his tastes and habits. Stooping down with his hands rest- 
ing upon his knees, so as to bring his face nearly to a level 
with the letters, he stared at them, while a close observer 
might have marked a gradually intensified gleam of intelli- 
gence first glimmer in his eyes, then mantle on his humorous 
puckered lips, and lastly illumine in its completion his entire 
vision. 

“Now what I wish,** continued Mr. Falconer, “and what I 
propose doing, with your kind aid, Mr. Mat, now that the 
clerk’s absence has given us the opportunity, is just to rub, 
or scrape off a little, — just a leetle — of the whitewash here, 
to see if we can discover any further traces. Don’t you think 
we might manage it, Mr. Mat ? ” said Mr. Falconer, coaxingly. 

“All the world says you are a very learned man, Mr. Fal- 
coner, and the Doctor another ; and learning is a very fine 
thing. But what would you and the Doctor and all the rest of 
the big- wigs say, if I was to tell you, without any rubbing off 
of whitewash at all, what comes next after the words you see 
there ? ** said Mr. Mat, putting both his hands in his waistcoat 
pockets, balancing hiffiself on the heels of his boots, and look- 
ing at the banker with merry, twinkling, half-closed eyes, and 
his head thrown back. 

“ Say, Mr. Mat ? ** replied Falconer, apparently quite taken 
aback with astonishment ; “ Say — why. Sir, I should say that 
any such statement was worth just nothing at all without 
verification. For my own part, I frankly admit that I do 
not perceive, nor indeed can imagine, the possibility of a 

conjecture 

32—2 


500 


LINDISFATIN CHASE. 


“ Well, look ye here, Mr. Falconer, my conjecture is this. I 
am of opinion that the next letters after those where the white- 
wash has been rubbed off, will be found to be ^, over again, 
and then 7^, s ; now if that turns out to be right when we 
rub off the whitewash, I think you ought to make me president 
of the antiquarian society, or the devil is in it.” 

“ My dear Sir,” said Falconer, becoming very red in the face, 
and more distant in his manner, from annoyance, and astonish- 
ment, and finding himself as it were, shoved aside from his 
place of learned superiority, ‘‘ My dear Sir, I must confess I do 
not understand you : I know not what notion you have taken 
into youA’ head ; I must protest ” 

“ Well, Mr. Falconer, I have told you what the next letters 
will be found to be. Now we’ll proceed to verify, as you 
say.” 

And Mr. Mat as he spoke, drew out from his pocket one of 
those huge pluralist pocket-knives — a whole tool-box of instru- 
ments in itself — which such men as Mr. Mat love to carry about 
with them ; and having pulled out from some corner of its all- 
accommodating handle a large wide-bladed hack-knife, pro- 
ceeded with no light or delicate hand to scrape away a 
further portion of the coating of whitewash which covered 
the board. 

Falconer looked on, aghast with dismay and horror ! 

“ Mr. Mat, Mr. Mat ! Good Heaven ! what are you about ? 

What will the Doctor say? Gently, gently, at all events; 

or you will destroy whatever remains of antiquity time may 
have spared.” 

“ Not a bit of it. Sir,” said Mr. Mat, scraping away vigor- 
ously ; “ there ! now. Sir, look and see if I was a true prophet. 
There they are ! There are the letters I told you we should 
find — ‘ V, i ; i, h, i, s ; * — plain enough, a’int they ? ” 

Mr. Falconer put on his gold eyeglasses, and peered closely 
at the place where Mr. Mat had laid the wood bare. He 
read the letters as deciphered by Mr. •Mat without any diffi- 
culty. 

“ My dear Sir,” he said tremulously, while his hands before 
and his pigtail behind, began to snake in unison with the excess 
of his perplexity and astonishment ; “ I confess I do not under- 
stand it, I am at a los^, I wash my hands of the matter. 

You must account for what you have done to the Doctor ; I 

fear he will be greatly displeased, I I I retire baffled ! 

— I can offer no conjecture — ahem ! ” 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


501 


Oh, ril be accountable to the Doctor ! Why I thought that 
he was worriting his life out to find out what this writing 
meant. I thought that was what you all of you wanted ? cried 
Mr. Mat. ‘‘ But I’ll tell you what it is, Mr. Falconer,” he con- 
tinued, selecting, as he spoke, another instrument from his 
pocket arsenal, I mean to verify this matter a little more. 
I am going to have that board out, inscription and all. Why 
it’s an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Falconer, the old board, 
and the inscription, as you call it, and the whole concern. 
Bless your heart, I know all about it ! What do you say to 
this now, by way of a learned explanation ? ” And with a 
very reprehensible forgetfulness of the sacred character of the 
building in which they were standing, and throwing himself 
into an attitude meant to be in accordance with his words, Mr. 
Mat made the groined roof of the fine old church ring again 
with the well-known old burthen, “ Tantivy, tantivy, tantivy ! 
This day a stag must die.” 

“ Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ” he laughed uproariously ; “ to think 
of poor old Charley’s music-score coming to make such a piece 
of work : ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ” 

“ That is all very well, Mr. Mat,” said Falconer, seizing, with 
a transient gleam of hope, on a point which seemed to afibrd 
the means of hitching a difficulty on to Mr. Mat’s explana- 
tion of the celebrated Chewton inscription ; “ but you will do 
me the favour to observe that the cabalistic word taken from 
the art of venerie which you have cited, ‘ tantivy,’ must be held 
to be written as pronounced, with a ?/ at the end ; whereas the 
letters painted on that panel are v, 

“Tell ye, Mr. Falconer, I saw him paint it — helped him to 
do it. Fact was, the parish boys used to puzzle themselves 
with the y at the end ; so he wrote it i, comes to the same 
thing, you know. Poor Charley was always wanting to teach 
a lot of the parish boys to sing, — all he did teach ’em, or could 
teach ’em, I suppose, for the matter of that. But singing he 
did understand, nobody better. Poor fellow ! many’s the glee 
he and I have made two at. Well, his plan was to paint a few 
bars of some easy song or other, with the words — there, you 
can see the notes plain enough ! — and paint it all so big that 
the whole of his class could read it at once. That was what 
this board was for. If you will go up into the room in old 
Mallory’s house, where poor Charley used to live, you may see 
just such another bit of music done on the wall with charcoal. 
I was up there just now, before you arrived, and there is the 


502 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


poor fellow’s handiwork on the wall pretty nearly as fresh as 
ever. Yes, there it is, music and all, plain enough,” continued 
Mr. Mat, who had all the time he was talking been vigorously 
working away at the board, and had at last succeeded in 
wrenching it away from the wall ; “ there is poor Charley’s 
class board, ‘ Tantivy, tantivy, tantivy, this day a stag must 
die ! ’ Now, Mr. Falconer, don’t I deserve to be made per- 
petual president of the learned society of Antiquaries of 
Silverton, eh ? What do you say to the verification now, 
Mr. Falconer ? ” 

“ It is truly a very extraordinary explanation of the mystery ; 
very unexpected and extraordinary, indeed. Nevertheless, Mr. 
Mat, I am sure that you will forgive me, if I declare myself to 
be speaking strictly under reserve, and refrain from pro- 
nouncing at present any definite opinion. I fear, as I before 
observed, that the Doctor, who is rector of this church, you 
must remember, Mr. Mat, will be very seriously displeased at 
the — the somewhat precipitous and violent steps, which have 
been taken for — ” 

“ For the discovery of his favourite mare’s nest, eh ? Well, 
I must take the blame of that. But now, Mr. Falconer,” con- 
tinued Mr. Mat, changing his manner entirely, and speaking 
very seriously, “ I’ll tell you what it is ! I’ve got a mare’s 
nest here as well as the Doctor. I did not wrench that board 
out of its place only to show you what it was. I knew the old 
board that my own hands had helped to paint, well enough, 
directly I saw it. But something else came into my head at 
the same time. You have heard all about the missing register, 
and how much may depend on the finding of it ? Well, now I 
remember how this place in the wall used to be before Mellish 
had the board put up there. There was a space under this 
stone arch here, as you may see now, and at the bottom of it a 
stone trough like a small conduit. Well, when Charley had 
done with the old board, and the boys had got pretty perfect in, 
‘ This day a stag must die,’ he scrawled that other lesson on the 
wall, as I was telling you just now, and I never knew nor cared 
what had become of the board. For though I was often over 
here in those days, my visits were not for the purpose of going 
to church, more shame for me. But I recollect as well as if it 
was yesterday, hearing Mellish complain, time and again, that 
there was no proper place in the vestry for the keeping of the 
register-book. And when I saw the board put up here so as 
to shut in a snug place under the old arch, and yet so as to 


IINDISFARN CHASE). 


503 


leave an opening atop — for, as you may see, this board did not 
close up the arch ; that must have been done afterwards, and 
I daresay our old friend who has just done ringing the bell 
could tell us the when, and maybe the wherefore— when I 
observed all this, you see, having the matter of the register 
more in my mind than the inscription, it came across me like a 
flash of lightning that it was very likely Charley had put the 
board up here to make a place, and a very snug, safe place, too, 
for keeping the register in. It was just like him, always full 
of contraptions, and a deal cleverer with his hands than he 
was with his head, poor fellow.’’ 

Just as Mr. Mat had completed his explanation, the two 
violators of the fabric of the church were rejoined by the old 
clerk. And a wrathful man was he, when his first glance 
showed him what had been done. Perhaps there was some- 
thing more, besides anger, in the pallor that came over his 
rigid old face, and the dilation of his still fiery, deep-set 
eyes. 

“ What is this, gentlemen ? ” he said, in a voice tremulous 
with passion. “ Sacrilege ! You have committed sacrilege, 
gentlemen, and abused the trust I placed in .you, in allowing 
you to remain in the church.” 

“ Mr. Mallory, I protest ” — began the banker with formal 
pomposity. 

“ Gentlemen,” interrupted the gaunt old man, still shaking 
with rage, “ you must answer for this outrage as best you may. 
You must be accountable to the rector of the parish — and to 
the law. I must insist upon your leaving the church instantly 
— instantly; ” he reiterated, coming forward a step as he spoke, 
so as to advance towards placing himself between Mr. Mat and 
the partially disclosed aperture which the removal of the board 
had occasioned. 

“ Certainly, Mr. Mallory, certainly,” said Mr. Mat, taking a 
rapid stride as he spoke, so as to be beforehand with the old 
man, and to place himself close to the spot from which the 
board had been taken ; “ I did this job. Mr. Falconer had no 
hand in it at all. I will be answerable for it. But before I 
go I must just see what lies buried among the rubbish there 
behind the boarding, only for the sake of antiquarianism, you 
know.” 

And while the words were yet on his lips he plunged his 
hand into the trough of the monk’s old conduit, still hidden 
behind a second board, which had been placed below the old 


604 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


music-score, and in the next minute drew ib forth with a small 
vellum-bound volume in it. 

Holding his prize aloof with one hand, Mr. Mat put the 
thumb of the other to his ear and uttered a view halloa which 
might have waked the ancient monks from their tercentenary 
slumber. 

Mr. Falconer, not a little scandalised, but quite awake to the 
possible importance of the discovery, held up his hands, partly 
in dismay and partly in interest. 

Mallory became perfectly livid ; and trembled visibly in 
every limb. He strove with might and main, however, to 
speak with stern calmness, as he said : 

“Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn, I require you to give up that 
volume instantly to me. If indeed it be a register, I, in the 
absence of the rector and the curate am the legal and proper 
guardian of it. Mr. Falconer I appeal to you!” 

“ I wash my hands — indeed, I have once already stated to 
Mr. Matthew that I wash my hands.” 

“ And I will wash mine when I get back to the Chase ! ” 
cried Mr. Mat, still holding high in the air the dusty and 
cobweb-mantled volume, and making for the door of the 
church. 

Mallory rushed forward to intercept him, with an agility 
that could not have been expected- from his years, crying 
out : 

“ Mr. Lindisfarn, I warn you ! This is sacrilege and felony ; 
felony, Mr". Lindisfarn ! Take care what you are about. Mr. 
Falconer, you are a magistrate, I call upon you.” 

“ Good-bye, Mr. Falconer, I'm off, no time to lose — see you 
in Silverton. Beg pardon, Mr. Mallory, but this book must 
go to Silverton, felony or no felony.” 

And so saying, he darted out of the church door, and across 
the street to the rail where he had left Miss Lucy, and was in 
the saddle in the twinkling of an eye. 

“ How Miss Lucy, old girl, put the best foot foremost ; ” and 
turning in his saddle as he started at a gallop, he saw his two 
recent companions standing at the church door, staring after 
him open-mouthed. 

“ Yoicks ! Yoicks ! hark forward I ” he cried, once more 
flourishing his prize in the air before their eyes; and then 
carefully securing it within his coat, gave all his attention to 
guiding Miss Lucy across the moor, at what would assuredly 
have been a break-neck pace to most riders. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


505 


CHAPTER LXIX. 

MR. SLOWCOME COMES OUT RATHER STRONG. 

The flanks of Miss Lucy were streaming as she stood at 
the door of Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo’s offices in the High 
Street, about half-past one o’clock on that Monday morning. 
Mr. Mat had ridden the fifteen miles from Chewton in one hour 
and a quarter; but had nevertheless found time to reflect, as 
he rode, that after all he did not know what the register 
might prove, or whether it might be found to prove anything 
in the matter of the succession of the Lindisfarn property. 
He remembered with some misgiving, that in truth he did 
not know with any certainty whether the dusty volume he 
had drawn from its hiding-place was any parish register at 
all or no ; and justly considering that it would be very de- 
sirable to ascertain what might be the real facts in these 
respects before carrying his prize to the Chase, where pro- 
bably nobody would be able to understand anything of the 
matter, he determined very judiciously to submit the volume 
in the first place to the learned scrutiny of old Slow. 

Hurriedly throwing Miss Lucy’s rein to a boy in the street, 
who, like every other boy in the streets of Silverton, knew 
both Mr. Mat and Miss Lucy perfectly well, he rushed into the 
open door, and made straight for that inner one of glass, which 
gave immediate admittance to the sacred presence of the heads 
of the firm, quite regardless of the remonstrances of the out- 
raged Bob Scott, who in vain tried to stop him. 

“ Sir, Sir, Mr. Mat ! ” cried Bob, in hi^ capacity of Cerberus, 
“ they are engaged. Mr. Slowcome has people with him on 
business, and Mr. Sligo is with him, too ; you must wait, if 
you please ; ” said the junior clerk, rushing out from his den 
on the left hand side of the entrance. 

“ Can’t wait ; who’s with him ? ” said Mr. Mat. 

“Why, Mr. Jared Mallory, of Sillmouth !” whispered Bob, 
with an air of much mystery. 

• “All right! ” cried Mr. Mat, with his hand on the lock of 


506 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


tlie glazed door ; and in the next instant he was in the inner- 
most shrine of Thermis. 

Mr. Slowcome was sitting in his accustomed chair, wheeled 
round a little from the writing-table, so as to face the Sillmouth 
attorney, who was seated opposite to him, while Mr. Sligo was 
standing dangling one leg over the back of a chair, on the rug 
before the fireplace. 

One would have said, to look at the three, that both Mr. 
Slowcome and Mr. Mallory were exceedingly enjoying them- 
selves, and that Mr. Sligo was much amused by watching them. 
And in this case, Mr. Slowcome and not Mr. Mallory was the 
hypocrite. That latter gentleman was very thoroughly enjoy- 
ing himself, and seemed entirely to have got over that appear- 
ance of being ill at ease, which a consciousness of his unpro- 
fessional and out-at-elbow-like shabbiness inspired him with on 
his first visit to the ofiices of the prosperous Silverton firm. 
He sat thrown back in an easy attitude in his chair, with one 
knee crossed over the other, with one hand in his trousers, 
while the other was caressing his chin ; and he was eyeing old 
Slow with the look of a man who has forced his antagonist 
into a corner, and triumphantly watches his struggles to escape 
from that position. But old Slow afforded him as little as 
possible of this triumph. He, too, seemed perfectly at his 
ease, and at all events was not hurried into speaking or 
moving one jot beyond his normal speed. Mr. Sligo was 
biting his nails, and looked like a terrier watching for the 
moment when a baited badger might give him an opportunity 
for dashing in upon him.^’ 

How do, Slowcome ? cried Mr. Mat, nodding to Mr. Sligo; 
“ Who is this gentleman ? he continued, staring at the visitor 
to the firm : “ Mr. Jared Mallory, I should say, by the look of 
him.’^ 

“You are right, Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn, though I can’t 
say I should have known you by the look of you, if I had not 
known you before ! ” • 

“We were engaged, Mr. Matthew, in discussing, quite in a 
friendly way, and without prejudice to any ulterior proceedings 
which it may be necessary to take in the matter — without pre- 
judice, Mr. Mallory — ” 

“ Oh, quite so,” snapped Mr. Mallory, with the rapidity of a 
monkey seizing a nut. 

“We were engaged in discussing this matter of the disputed 
succession — not but what I am premature in calling it so,” — 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


507 


pursued Mr. Slowcome, as if he were speaking against time, 
and would beat it out of the field — “ but this question, which 
may become such — may unfor-tu-nate-ly become such — respect- 
ing the Lindisfarn property.” 

“ Quite so,” put in Mr. Sligo, like a pistol-shot. 

“ And I am come to help you,” said Mr. Mat, briskly, drawing 
a chair between Mr. Slowcome and Mallory. 

“ Ay, ay, ay, ay,” said Mr. Slowcome ; “ Sligo, Mr. Matthew 
has come to help us.” 

“More the merrier,” said Mr. Mallory. 

“Perhaps better see member of firm confidentially. My 
room at your service, Mr. Matthew,” suggested Mr. Sligo. 

“ Look at that, Mr. Slowcome,” said Mr. Mat, producing his 
book, and utterly disregarding the caution of Mr. Sligo. 

“ A remarkably dirty volume,” said old Slow, taking it be- 
tween his finger and thumb, and laying it gingerly on the desk 
before him ; “ Have you a duster there, Mr. Sligo ? Be so 
good as to ring the bell.” 

“ Let me look at it, Mr. Slowcome ; I am not so dainty,” 
said Mallory, stretching out his hand towards the vdlume. 

“ Hay, Mr. Mal-lo-ry,” returned Slowcome, waving him off 
with an interposing hand ; “ let us keep our hands clean if we 
can — clean if we can, you know, Mis-ter Mal-lo-ry. What does 
the volume purport to be, Mr. Matthew ? ” 

“It has not purported anything yet. That is what I 
brought it here for, that you might see. But if I am not 
mistaken, Slowcome, that is the missing register of Chewton 
church.” 

A sudden change, transitory as a flash of lightning, passed 
over Mr. Mallory’s face, and he again stretched out his hand 
towards the little volume, which had by this time been duly 
divested of its dust and cobwebs, saying, as he did so, 

“ Indeed, Mr. Matthew : that would be most satisfactory to 
us all.” 

Mr. Sligo sprang forward to interpose, and snatch the volume 
himself. But old Slow was beforehand with them both, quietly 
letting his fat white hand fall upon the volume, as the words 
passed Mr. Mat’s lips. 

“ Dear me, dear me,” he said, without the change of a demi- 
semi-tone in his voice, “ and where did you obtain the volume, 

Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn? that is, if you have no objection 

to answer the question, you know.” 

“ Oh, no objection in life,” said Mr. Mat, readily ; “ I com- 


508 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


mitted felony to get it. At least, so that gentleman’s worthy 
father told me.” 

“ Ay, ay, ay, ay. Dear me, dear me ; you removed the 
volume from the parish church of Chewton, and Mr. Mallory, 
senior, who is, I understand, the clerk of that parish, expressed 
an opinion — a primd facie opinion, of course — that the removal 
of it amounted within the meaning of the statute of felony. 
Ay, ay, ay, ay! Your good father amuses his leisure hours 
with the pleasing study of the criminal law, Mr. Mallory ? ” 
said Slowcome, bowing to the Sillmouth attorney with a per- 
fection of bland courtesy. 

“ Little study needed to tell that stealing a parish register is 
felony, I should think,” snarled Mallory. 

“Very true, Mis-ter Mal-lo-ry, very true indeed. We will, 
however, examine the volume at all events. We can hardly 
make felony of that, Mr. Mallory, can we ? ” 

And thus saying, old Slow carefully and leisurely adjusted 
his gold eyeglasses, and proceeded to look at the book, from 
which he had not once removed his hand, during the above 
conversation. 

“ Most assuredly this is the register of births, deaths, and 
marriages of the parish of Chewton, ranging over all the 
time with which our present business can be concerned, Mr. 
Matthew,” said he, after a leisurely inspection. 

Mr. Mat’s eyes Winkled, as he said : 

“ I knew poor Charley Mellish could never have done any- 
thing wrong about it in any way ” 

“No suggestion of the kind, Mr. Mat. Eegister lost, all 
about it, no case,” interrupted Mr. Sligo, precipitately, and 
thereby averting a storm of virtuous indignation, that was on 
the point of bursting from Mr. Mallory. 

“ And where was the mislaid volume found, Mr. Matthew ? — 
always supposing that you have no objection to reply to the 
question,” said Slowcome. 

Mr. Mat related the scene in Chewton church as compendi- 
ously as he could, not omitting the old clerk’s violent opposition 
to his taking away the book, and concluded by asking the 
legal oracle what he thought about it. 

Mr. Slowcome had, while Mr. Mat was telling his story, 
handed the important book to Mr. Sligo, with a look, and the 
one word, “ Sligo,” as he put it into his hands. And Mr. Sligo 
had in about a minute afterwards, while Mr. Mat was still 
speaking, returned the volume open to Mr. Slowcome, with his 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


609 


forefinger pointing carelessly to one of the entries on the page. 
Old Slow glanced at the passage pointed out to him, while he 
said, in answer to Mr. Mat’s final question : 

“ Well, Mr. Mat, I am bound in justice to your friend, Mr. 
Mallory, senior, of Chewton, to say that I am of opinion that 
the abstraction of the register does bear a primd facie simi- 
larity to a case of felony.” 

“ Primd facie and lasta facie too, I should say,” cried Mr. 
Mallory; “now look’ee here, Mr. Slowcome,” he continued, 
“ this may come to be an ugly business, you see. Of course we 
cannot put up with such a document as that being left in the 
i power and at the discretion of our opponents. Out of the ques- 
tion, no saying what may have been done already, no offence.” 
(Luckily for Mr. Jared’s bones, Mr. Mat had no conception of 
f his meaning.) “ But look’ee here, Mr. Slowcome, matters may 
i be arranged ; no wish to press hardly on a gentleman much 
* respected in the county. Let the register be immediately 
sealed and returned to the clerk of Chewton — and we consent 
there shall be no further notice taken.” 

“ That is a very handsome offer, very handsome and friendly, 
Mr. Mallory, indeed ; but would it not,” and here Mr. Slow- 
some paused to savour a huge pinch of snuff, and carefully 
filliped away a grain or two from his immaculate shirt-frill 
before proceeding, “would it not, I was about to observe, 
have an awkward appearance of compounding a felony, Mr. 
Mallory, since we are driven to use such hard words ? ” 

“ I’ll tell you what it is, gentlemen, all three of you,” cried 
Mr. Mat, striking his hand on Mr. Slowcome’s table as he 
spoke, “ If I have committed a felony. I’ll be shot if it shall 
be for nothing ! And that register shall be examined before 
either it or I leave this office.” 

“ We don’t shoot felons in this country, Mr. Mat,” said old 
Slow, while an earthquaky sort of movement originating in 
the inside of him caused his ponderous watch-chain and seals 
to oscillate, and indicated that old Slow conceived himself 
to have perpetrated a joke. 

“ And very few documents of any description that ever find 
their way into this office, go out again unexamined ! ” said the 
younger partner, with a hard look at Mr. Mallory. 

“ Very right, Sligo ! very judiciously observed indeed ! 
Capital business maxim that, Mr. Mallory ! And as for our 
friend, Mr. Mat, being either shot, or t’other thing, you know, 
I think I could suggest another line of defence ; — I thinli I 


510 


LINDISFAHN CHASE. 


could, with all deference to an authority doubtless more con- 
versant with that department of business than our house can 
pretend to be,’^ said Mr. Slowcome, with a most courteous 
bow to Mr. Mallory. 

“ Indeed, Mr. Slowcome ! And what may that be ? I should 
be curious to hear it, I confess ! ” 

“ Well ! it is true I am but an ignoramus as to the practice 
of the criminal side of the court, Mr. Mallory; but my humble 
notion is, that if I were in Mr. Mat’s place, and either you 
or your respected father were to say anything to me of so 
unpleasant a nature as felony, Mr. Mallory, I — speaking in 
the character of our excellent friend, Mr. Mat, you understand 

— I should reply to either you or your respected father 

Forgery ! Mr. Mal-lo-ry, Forgery ! For-ge-ry ! ! ” cried Mr. 
Slowcome, speaking with his accustomed slowness, but with 
an energy that caused his chin, and his pig-tail, and his watch- 
chain all to oscillate in unison. 

“ I do not know what you mean, Mr. Slowcome ! cried 
Mallory, turning very pale, “but I would advise you to be 

very careful of actionable words, Mr. Slowcome, spoken 

before witnesses, Mr. Slowcome! ” 

“ Dear me ! dear me 1 dear me 1 To think of its being 
actionable to talk of forgery in the most abstract, and I may 
say hypothetical, sort of way ! See, now ! I told you that 
I knew nothing about these matters ! But it’s as well to be 

hung for a sheep as a lamb, now isn’t it, Mr. Mallory? 

So we will come to the concrete. I say the document you 
submitted to me, purporting to be an extract from this re- 
gister, has been fradulently altered, Mr. Mallory ! The date 
has been tampered with, Mr. Mallory ! The marriage between 
the late Julian Lindisfarn and your good sister, Mr. Mallory, 
was celebrated, as duly shown by this register, not before 
but after the birth of the child, now wrongfully called Julian 
LindisjBarn ; and that child is nullius filius, which means, 
strange as it may seem, Mr. Mat, the son of nobody at all, 
and therefore d fortiori, as I may perhaps be allowed to 
say, nobody’s grandson, and in nowise heir to an acre of 
the Lindisfarn estates 1 Nullius filius, Mr. Mallory ; and 
the rights of the Misses Katherine and Margaret Lindisfarn 
are in-dis-pu-ta-ble, Mr. Mallory. That is all ! And a very 
good day’s work you have done this morning, Mr. Mat I 
I congratulate you with all my heart ; and between ourselves, 
I don’t think that Mr. Mallory will, under the circumstances, 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


611 


be hard upon us about the felony — under the circumstances, 
eh, Mr. Mallory ? ’’ 

“ Can’t say, indeed, Mr. Slowcome ! We shall see, we shall 
see. Sir ! ” said Mr. Mallory, sticking his hat on over his ear, 
and taking a stride towards the door, “ you shall hear from 
me shortly. Sir.” 

I think not ! I think not ! ” said Mr. Slowcome, shaking 
his head, as Mr. Sligo closed the door behind the discom- 
fited foe. 

“We shall hear no more of them. Sir;” he continued, 
turning to Mr. Mat ; “ Ha ! ha ! ha ! Tantivy, tantivy ! 
very remarkable chance. Tantivy, tantivy ! ” repeated the 
old gentleman, slowly, as he rubbed his hands over each other 
softly, “ Tantivy, tantivy ! very good, very good indeed ! ” 

Mr. Mat hardly waited to hear the end of old Slow’s felici- 
tations, before rushing out of the office as precipitately as he 
had entered it, he sprang into the saddle, and astonished Miss 
Lucy by the unwonted style in which she was required to get 
over the ground between Silverton and the Chase. 

“ Forgery ! Forgery ! Forgery ! ” he shouted in view-holloa 
tones as he rushed into the drawing-room, where the ladies of 
the family, including Lady Farnleigh, were sitting. 

Of course the news of the finding of the register, and of old 
Slow’s decision respecting the facts resulting from its contents, 
were soon made known to every member of the family ; and 
were welcomed by them with rejoicing, slightly diversified 
in the manifestation of it in accordance with the characteristics 
of the various individuals. The only one of the party whose 
peace of mind was in any degree permanently injured by the 
events which had taken place, and the erroneous impressions 
arising from them, was Miss Immy. For the upsetting of 
the foundations of her mind by the statement, which had 
with difficulty been made credible to her, that the Lindisfarn 
girls were not the heiresses to the Lindisfarn property, was 
so complete and irremediable that it was found impracticable 
to convince her, that the decision now once again arrived 
at, that they were heiresses, was not liable to be again reversed 
to-morrow. It is a dangerous thing to disturb the ideas of 
those who have never accustomed their minds to the possibility 
that their certainties may turn out to be not certain. 

Kate nestled up to her godmother’s side, and whispered, 
“ I do so hope that nobody will have told him of it, before 
he comes here.” 


512 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


! you would like to have the telling of your ^him’ — as 
if there were but one of the sex in the world — yourself, would 
you ! said Lady Farnleigh, in the same whispered tones. 
“ Well, as he is at this moment probably in the Petrel off the 
coast of Moulsea Haven, and as the instant he can get away 
he will come here as fast as a horse’s legs can carry him, I 
think you have a fair chance of being the first teller of your 
good news.” 

“ If I can only make him understand how wholly my great 
joy at this change is for his sake,” said Kate, drooping her 
face over her godmother’s shoulder, and putting her lips very 
close to her ear. 

“ I am inclined to think, my dear, that you will not find him 
obtuse on that subject,” replied Lady Farnleigh. 

Miss Margaret, after having partaken with the rest of the 
family of the general burst of mutual congratulations with 
which Mr. Mat’s news had been received, quietly stole away to 
her own room and locked herself in. There throwing herself 
into a large chair, she remained for many minutes plunged in 
reflections, which, it would have been very evident to any eye 
that could have watched her, were not of an altogether 
pleasurable kind. There were certain expressions flitting 
changefully across those lovely features, like thunder-clouds 
across a summer sky, and certain clenchings from time to 
time of the slender rosy-tipped fingers of those long beauti- 
fully-formed hands which denoted that other feelings, than 
those of unmixed satisfaction and rejoicing were present and 
busy within that snowy bosom. We know that Miss Margaret 
had been shamefully and cruelly treated. She certainly had 
cause to feel anger and bitter resentment against a certain 
person — and Miss Margaret was apt to feel resentment keenly. 
How far it would be justifiable to conclude that Madame de 
R-enneville’s lovely pupil was engaged during those long 
minutes of self-absorbed reflection, in debating within herself 
what course would secure the best and sweetest vengeance and 
the severest retribution on the individual who had incurred her 
displeasure, must be left to the consideration of the candid 
reader. Supposing it should seem probable that such was in 
fact the case, we can only discover the decision on this point 
arrived at in her secret meditations, by observing and carefully 
piecing together her actions immediately reverie gave place to 
action, and those particulars of her subsequent conduct which 
yet remain to be’ recorded in these pages. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


613 


Now what Miss Margaret did immediately on rousing herself 
from her meditations and her easy chair, was to change the 
somewhat neglected attire which she had adopted during the 
sackcloth and ashes days of disappointment and misery through 
which she had just been passing, for a very carefully arranged 
and tasteful toilette de matin. Miss Margaret’s practice in the 
matter was quite oriental and biblical, it may be observed. 
The fact is, that sorrow manifests its evil influence very 
differently in different natures. In Miss Margaret it produced 
a singular tendency to slovenliness. She was like the cats 
when they are ill ; and when under a cloud took, as the 
phraseology of the servants’ hall has it, “no pride in herself.” 

She was curiously prompt in making this change, certainly. 
Nevertheless, perhaps this promptitude may be seen to have 
been inspired by that judicious and keen appreciation of men 
and things by which Margaret Lindisfarn was so remarkably 
distinguished. 


CHAPTER L. 

ARCADES AMBO ! — CONCLUSION. 

Just as Mr. Mat was hurriedly mounting Miss Lucy at 
Messrs. Slowcome and Sligo’s door, the carriage of Mr. 
Falconer drove up the High Street of Silverton, on its return 
from Chewton. As soon as possible after that triumphant 
flight of Mr. Mat with his prize in his hand from the village 
in the moor, the worthy banker had taken his leave of Mr. 
Mallory, and had entered his comfortable carriage, charging 
his coachman as he did so, to make all possible speed in return- 
ing to Silverton. But not only were the banker’s handsome 
pair of carriage horses no match for Miss Lucy, but the road 
33 


614 


LINWSFARN CHASE. 


they had to traverse was some two miles longer. And it 
resulted thence that Mr. Falconer arrived in the High Street, 
as has been said, only just as Mr. Mat, after his important 
interview with the lawyers, wh.s leaving it. The banker 
caught sight of Mr. Mat, as he rode away from the lawyer’s 
door, and putting his head out of the carriage window, called 
to the coachman to stop at Mes^s. Slowcome and Sligo’s 
office. 

I saw Mr. Matthew Lindisfarn leave your door a minute 
ago, Slowcome,” said he, making his way into the lawyer’s 
presence in a much more hurried manner than comported with 
Mr. Bob Scott’s ideas of the dignity of his principal. “ Of 
course you have heard all about the strange adventure at ■ 
Chewton. You have seen the book, I suppose, that he carried 
off in such a — I must say — ^in a somewhat unjustifiable man- 
ner. Is it a register ? Is it the register ? Does it prove 
anything ? ” 

“ I never am able to hear more than one question at a time, 
Mr. Falconer,” said Slowcome, looking up very deliberately 
from a letter he was writing, “ even when I am not interrupted 
in another occupation. Yes ! I have seen the book Mr. Mat 
brought from Chewton. What came next ? ” 

“ Why, was it the register ? Do tell ’ me all about it, Slow- 
come, come, as an old friend ; interested, too, you know, in the | 
matter.” 

“ Ay, ay, indeed. Still interested in the matter ? Dear me ! 
But to tell you all about it would really occupy a larger T 
amount of time than I am able, with due regard to oth( j 
pressing avocations, to devote to that purpose at present — ju jl 
at present, you see, Mr. Falconer.” % 

“ Only just one word, Slowcome,” said the banker, absolute v' it 
writhing with impatience, under the severe discipline wii i| 
which old Slow was wont to chastise that failing ; “ Did tl 
book Mr. Mat found prove anything ? ” I 

“ Oh, dear me, yes ! It proves all the marriages and deatl J 
in Chewton parish for a very considerable number of year M 
Mr. Falconer.” S 

“ It was the register, then ? Come, Slowcome, do ‘ let tl M 
cat out of the bag’ with one word. Come, there is a goc !■ 
fellow. You know that I have good reasons for wishing t vB 
know the truth. What does the register prove in the matte M 
of the Lindisfarn succession ? m 


LINDISPARN CHASE. 


515 


“Well, 1 have no objection to state it as my opinion 

with all due reservations, you will understand, Mr. Falconer — 
with all due re . . . ser . , . va . . . ti . . . ons, of course — that the register 
now fortunately discovered and brought forward in evidence, 
does very satisfactorily and indisputably,” and old Slow, who 
had risen from his chair, and was standing with his back to 
his office fire, with his hands under the tails of his coat, made 
at each disjointedly uttered syllable of those polysyllabic 
adverbs a sort of little bow, which caused his coat-tails, and 
his watch chain, and his pigtail to move in unison like the 
different parts of some well-regulated machine ; “ very sa-tis- 
fac-to-ri-ly and in-dis-pu-ta-bly, Mr. Falconer, establish the 
clear, and, considering the age of the other parties named in 
the entail and other circumstances, I think I am justified in 
saying, in-de-fea-si-ble right of the young ladies at the Chase 
to their father’s estates.” 

“ You don’t say so ! By George, Slowcome, could you not 
have said so in half a word ? ” cried the banker, as he hurried 
to the door of the room. 

“ 'No, I think not, Mr. Falconer. I never make use of half 
words, considering entire ones to be more sa-tis-fac-to-ry.” 

But Mr. Falconer was already half way to the hall door by 
the time old Slow had got through this last adverb ; and was 
hurrying home up the High Street, before the earthquake that 
began to heave Mr. Slowcome’s white waistcoat, giving 
fevidence of the existence of hidden laughter far down below 
the surface of the man, had subsided. 

“Fred, come here,” said Mr. Falconer, as he passed hur- 
riedly through the outer office of the bank into his private 
room behind it ; “I want to speak to you.” 

Mr. Frederick, who had of late been far more regular in his 
attendance at the bank than had been the case for some time 
past, rose somewhat listlessly from his seat, and followed his 
father into his sanctum. 

“ Shut the door, Fred,” cried the senior, hastily, “ here’s all 
the fat in the fire again, and we shall burn our fingers at last, 
if we don’t mind what we are about. They have found a 
parish register, which proves that the girls up at the Chase 
are the rightful heirs after all. Ho mistake. Old Slowcome 
has just told me ; took me half an hour to get it out of 
him.” 

“By Jove. If you had not sent that old fool Gregory to 
33—2 


516 


LINDISFARN CHASR. 


spoil all, I should have been all right by this time,’’ said the 
unreasonable young gentleman. 

“ Yes, and if it had turned up t’other way ? A pretty job. 
But it’s not too late. If you are half a fellow, you will be 
able to put it right again. But sharp’s the word. No time to 
be lost.” 

Freddy shook his ambrosial curls with a very decided 
expression of doubt. “ I am afraid it won’t do,” said he, “ I 
am. afraid that game is up. Nothing, you know. Sir, has 
passed since my letter to the Squire withdrawing from the 
engagement.” 

“Dictated by me, of course,” rejoined his father, “you 
make it right with the girl, and I will undertake the 
Squire.” 

“ I am almost afraid it won’t do,” replied his son ; “ it is 
worth trying though, anyway. I’ll try it.” 

“ Not an hour to lose, my boy ; and Fred,” he added, as his 
son was leaving the room, already meditating his high emprise ; 

“ lay the blame on me, as thick as you like, you know. That 
will be your plan.” 

Fred nodded, and hastened to his own room to prepare for ; 
marching on this forlorn hope, having asked one of the ^ 
juniors in the bank, as he passed, to have the kindness to ; 
order his horse to be saddled for him without delay. I 

In a few minutes he came down dressed altogether in black, ^ 
with his face looking a good deal paler than it had been half ■ 
an hour before, and with his left arm in a sling. 

Thus got up for the occasion, he mounted his horse as grace- > 
fully as could be done by a man who had the use of only one ^ 
arm, and made the best of his way to the Chase, arriving there g 
about an hour and a half after Mr. Mat, and as near as might j 
be about the time when Margaret had shown her admirable 
tact and knowledge of mankind by making the improvement / 
which has been mentioned in her toilette. She was, in fact, 1 
in the act of descending the staircase which opened on the i 
front hall at the Chase, when our friend Fred entered the i 
house. No more inevitable meeting could have been arranged 
for them. The groom who had taken Frederick’s horse from i 
him, had opened the door for him ; and had then gone away 
to the stables, leaving him, as a well known and familiar 
guest, to find his own way into the drawing-room, after the 
unceremonious fashion of the house. And thus it happened ^ 


LINDISFABN CHASE ^ 517 

that there was no servant present to mar the privacy of their 
interview. 

Fred did it very well, certainly. Hurriedly advancing two 
or three rapid strides towards the foot of the stair, where 
Margaret stood, magnificent in the accusing majesty of her 
haughty attitude, he stopped suddenly ; and made a partially 
abortive effort to clasp his hands before him, which, painfully 
impeded as it evidently was, by the maimed condition of the 
arm supported by its black silk sling, was — or at all events 
ought to have been — exceedingly touching. 

“ Margaret ! he said, in tones rendered low and husky (so 
much so, indeed, as to be inaudible in the neighbouring 
drawing-room) — by his evident emotion — “ my own, my adored 
Margaret, oh tell me that I have still the right to call you so ! 
Oh, Margaret, if you could know what I have suffered during 
these dreadful, dreadfiil days ! Again and again I have 
thought that my reason must have sunk under the horrible 
mental torment I have suffered. It would I feel sure, have 
done so, had I not at length forced my way to you despite the 
orders and efforts of nurses and all of them. Thank God, I 
can at least see and speak to you once again ! ’’ 

“ I see that you have hurt your arm. Sir,” said Margaret, 
coldly and haughtily ; “ did it ever occur to you that there 
might be worse torture than that from an injured limb ? You 
tell me of your sufferings. Did you ever give a thought to 
mine ? ” 

“Oh! Margaret, is it necessary to tell you, does not your 
own heart tell you, that what has been driving me mad has 

been the thought that you were suffering ” 

“ Oh, indeed, Mr. Falconer ! Your trouble on that score 
might have long since ceased ; you made me pass a very, very 
miserable hour ; but the agony was soon over ; you do not 
suppose that I could feel aught but contempt for a man who 
could treat a girl as you treated me, or consider it anything but 
a matter for self-gratulation, that I had escaped all ties with 
one who could be capable of such conduct ? ” 

“You are unjust to me, Margaret. Your displeasure is 
natural, but it renders you unjust to me. Can you suppose 
that anything save physical impossibility,” and here he glanced 
piteously at his maimed arm, “ could have prevented me from 
keeping the appointment it had been such rapture to me to 
make ? ” 


518 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


“ The post-chaise then was not, as I had heard, countermanded 
by your father’s clerk ? ” sneered Margaret. 

“Assuredly it was,” replied he, “in consequence of the 
unfortunate accident which happened to me as I was on the 
point of hastening to the rendezvous. It was necessary to 
provide against your being compromised by leaving the chaise 
standing all night at the garden door. That was the only idea 
that remained firm in my mind, when the agony of the disloca- 
tion took from me all power of thinking. Can you harbour 
resentment, Margaret, against the victim of so cruel a 
misfortune ? ” 

“ Cruel as the misfortune was, it must be admitted that it 
was opportune, Mr. Falconer — almost as strikingly so as the 
- first moment at which you are able to get out to bring me the 
assurance of youi* unbroken affection.” 

“Opportune, Miss Lindisfarn? What do you mean? ” said 
Frederick, with a well-feigned air of utter perplexity. 

** “ Simply this, Mr. Falconer,” replied Margaret with an 
expression of withering scorn, “ simply this ; that the abandon- 
ment of your proposed elopement coincided with very curious 
accuracy with the moment when the information in all pro- 
bability reached you that I was not entitled to any portion of 
my father’s estates ; and that your reappearance here follows 
instantly upon the discovery that that information was quite 
erroneous. That is all.” 

“Now, Margaret ! ” said Freddy Falconer, in a tone of friendly 
remonstrance, and not appearing at all overwhelmed by the 
accusations of his beloved. . “Now, Margaret,” he said, stretch- 
ing out both hands towards her, the injured one too, curiously 
enough, “ is it not unworthy of both of us to suppose that 
either you or I could be influenced in our conduct by such con- 
siderations ? Blakistry, I hear, declares that he has the cer- 
tainty that both you and your sister were aware of the facts 
that were supposed to oust you from the inheritance of the 
Lindisfarn property, at the time when you first made me happy 
by accepting the offer of my hand.” And Frederick looked at 
his beloved with a very peculiar expression as he spoke these 
words. “ Now the low-minded Sillshire gossips might make a 
Very disagreeable story out of that. But we know each other 
better. We know, that you in first accepting my offer and then 
in consenting to an elopement before the secret of your cousin 
Julian’s being alive had become known, as well as I in appa- 


LINDISFARN CHASE, 


619 


rently suspending my hope of calling you mine for a short 
interval — loe know, I say, that neither one nor the other of us 
were influenced for a moment by any unworthy considerations ? 
We know, each that the other is incapable of any such baseness. 
The world, my Margaret, the vulgar outside world, may talk of 
these things. But we know each other. I might have told you 
that I have induced my father to give Slowcome directions to 
make very exceptionally liberal arrangements in respect to pin- 
money. But it never occurred to me to mention it, knowing how 
little space any such matters would occupy in your thoughts.** 

‘‘ Little indeed, Frederick,’* said Margaret, whose dark liquid 
eyes had begun, during the course of her Frederick’s last 
speech, to turn on a service of glances of a very difierent 
quality from those with which she was regarding him at the 
commencement ; ‘‘ little, indeed, would any such matters occupy 
my mind, except as afibrding a proof of your thoughtful love. 
Ah, Frederick, you know not, may you never know, what I 
have had to sufler since I doubted it ! ” 

“But you doubt it no more, my Margaret?” he cried, 
advancing one stride towards her. 

“ To think of your having been so watchful over my future 
comfort, as to have persuaded your father to have the papers 
made differently. I must make that odious old Slowcome 
explain it all to me, that I may be able to say in days to come, 
Frederick, ‘This I owe to the loving thought that remained 
true to me during the dark days.* May I ask old Slowcome to 
explain it to me ? ” 

“ He shall, my own Margaret. May I not once more call 
you so ? It shall be explained to you, my Margaret,” answered 
Frederick, who perceived that he was pardoned and restored to 
his former position, but that the little peace-offering he had 
mentioned must be really and absolutely paid and not used only 
as dust to be thrown in the magniflcent eyes of his Margaret. 

“Ah, Frederick,” she rejoined, allowing him to take her 
hand between both his, which he did with no impediment, appa- 
rently, from the maimed condition of one of his arms ; “ Ah, 
Frederick, these have been very painful days, a dark and 
miserable time ! And we may be very sure that unkind and 
envious eyes have been watching us, and will not be slow to 
draw their own malicious conclusions, and .make their own 
odious insinuations.” 

‘But what need we care, dearest, for all the malicious 


520 


LINBISFAEN CHASE. 


tongues in the world, when we are mutually conscious of each 
other’s truth and affection ? Are we not all the world to each 
other, Margaret ? ” 

“ And that must be our strong and sufficient defence against 
^ all calumny. For you may depend on it we shall have to 
endure it. People are so envious, dear,” she said, looking 
up at his handsome face and figure with all the pride of 
proprietorship. 

“ And well may all Sillshire be envious of me, my Margaret,” 
murmured the gentleman, duly following lead. 

So Margaret and Frederick understood one another very 
satisfactorily and completely, and, bold in their mutual support, 
advanced towards the drawing-room door. 

“ Take that handkerchief off your arm, Frederick ; I am sure 
you can do without it,” whispered Margaret, as they were on 
the point of entering ; and Frederick did as he was bid. 

I do not know that there is much more to be added to this 
chronicle of Lindisfarn. The most remarkable fact to be told 
in addition to what has been written, is that all four of the 
principal actors on the scene are yet living, though it is forty 
years — ay more than forty-one years by the time the lines will 
reach the reader’s eye — since what has been related took 
place. 

Admiral Ellingham, K.C.B., full admiral of the red, is a year 
or two on the wrong side of seventy ; but he can still walk up 
through his own woods to the Lindisfarn stone; and is 
altogether a younger man than Frederick Falconer, Esq., who, 
though a year or two on the right side of seventy, begins to 
find his daily drive from Belgravia into the city rather too 
much for him, though made in the most luxurious of 
.broughams. His regularity in making this journey is not 
attributable, however, at all events, to any unsatisfactory state 
of things at home, due to the presence or conduct in his home 
of Mrs. Frederick Falconer ; for she is not resident there. 
One child, a daughter, was born to them after a year of marriage. 
She is still single and is the natural heiress to the great wealth 
of her father. Kate is the happy mother of a much larger 
family, and when all of them with their respective wives and 
husbands and children are collected at Lindisfarn, as is 
sometimes the case at Christmas, it would be difficult to find in 
all merry England, a finer, happier, merrier, or handsomer 
family party. 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


521 


The loss of the Saucy Sally was eventually the making of 
Hiram Pendleton, and consequently of his brave and faithful 
wife, instead of being their ruin. A good deal of admiration 
had been excited in the neighbourhood by the gallant manner 
in which he had rescued his two passengers, Barbara Mallory 
and her child, from a watery grave, at the imminent risk of his 
own life, and partly by the assistance of others, but mainly by 
the exertions and influence of Captain Ellingham, he was put 
into possession of the neatest fishing-smack on all the Sillshire 
coast, on the condition, — most loyally observed — that she was 
to be used for fishing in the most literal sense of the term. 

Julian Mallory was also indebted to Captain Ellingham 
for his first start and subsequent protection in a career which 
has given him his epaulettes in the coast-guard service; and 
enabled him to offer a home to his mother during her declining 
years; old Mallory died very shortly after the events above 
related ; and Barbara lived for some years, the first of them with 
her boy, and the latter of them all alone, in the large stone 
house at Chew ton, which her father left to her, to the ex- 
clusion of her brother Jared, and to the breach of all communi- 
cation between the brother and sister. 

I do not know whether it may occur to any readers of the 
above history that any case has been made out for an exemplary 
distribution of poetical justice. If so, I am afraid that I shall 
not be able to satisfy them within the limits of the few words 
which I have yet space to write. 

Poetical justice often requires at least a volume or two for 
the due setting forth of it. And perhaps if I had an oppor- 
tunity of relating even compendiously some of the life 
experiences of the four principal personages of our story, it 
would be found that all the antecedents which have been either 
related or indicated in the foregoing pages, bore fruit very 
accurately after their own, and not after any other kind. 
Stones thrown into the air always fall down again according to 
the laws of gravity, and not sometimes only. 

As for any more immediate and dramatic action of Nemesis, 
I am afraid there is little to be said. Each lady of our principal 
dramatis personce married the man she wished to marry, and 
each gentleman had the lady of his choice. Assuredly no one 
of the four would have changed lots with the other. 

It is true the squire marked his sense of the difference of the 
way in which his two daughters had conducted themselves in 


622 


LINDISFARN CHASE. 


the very peculiar and difficult circumstances in which they had 
been placed, by so arranging matters that the old house and 
the old acres fell wholly and absolutely to the share of Kate, a 
charge on them, equal to half their money value, being secured 
to Margaret. But although the old banker had originally 
dreamed other dreams, it was not long before Frederick and 
his wife had both learned to think that the arrangement made 
was such as they would have chosen. So there was no Nemesis 
in that. 

But then does she not — that sly and subtle Nemesis — ^habitu- 
ally find the tools for her work rather in our choices gratified, 
than in our choices frustrated ? 


FINIS. 


W. H. SMITH & SON, PKINTEES. 186 , STRAND, LONDON. 


THE 


WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


Reprinted f rom BlacJcwood' s Magazine^ Aprils 1862, 


The name of Charles Lever is still chiefly associated with those 
novels by which his popularity as a writer was first secured, 
and by which, perhaps, his subsequent literary reputation has 
been in some measure overpowered. These works have prob-- 
ably met with a more cordial reception from the public than 
from the critics. Their author may, in a certain sense, defy 
criticism, by exclaiming like Horace, “ Pueris canto He has 
been the biographer of boyhood. In all his earlier works he 
especially addresses himself to that happy portion of mankind 
whose digestion is yet unimpaired, whose nerves are unshaken, 
in whom the breath of life has no resemblance to a sigh, and 
who (as he himself portrays them) are ever ready to risk, with 
unabated ardour, a broken neck or a broken heart at every 
turn in the joyous chase of existence. To the verdict of such 
an audience Mr. Lever has every right to appeal as gaily and 
as confidently as Anacreon appealed to the Loves. It would 
undoubtedly be as ungracious to reproach the author of 
‘ Charles O’Malley ’ with the absence of those pretensions to 
literary dignity which he himself disclaims with so merry a 
laugh at dignities of eveiy sort, as to denounce the Greek 
lyrist for his resolute refusal to celebrate the exploits of 
Atrides. To the most caj^tious critic Mr. Lever may fairly 
say,— 

“Non potes in nngas dicere plura meaa 
Ipse ego quam dixi.” 

And he that can follow the adventures of Harry Lorrequer, 
Charles O’Malley, Jack Hinton, and Tom Burke, without 

A , 


2 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


the frequent interruption of hearty laughter, has probably 
survived all sense of enjoyment in the society of the young. 
In any case he is not a man to be envied. To us, indeed, 
there is something of pathos in the reperusal of these books. 
It is like reading one’s old love-letters, or hearing an old friend 
recount the frolics of one’s own youth. We turn the pages 
with a certain tender incredulity, and there steals over us a 
sensation like that 

“ Smell of violets liidden in the green,*' 

which the poet declares to have 

“ Poured back into his empty soul and frame 
The times when he remembers to have been 
Joyful, and free from blame.” 

Mr. Lever’s blooming young heroes, if not invariably 
blameless, are at least exceedingly joyful. Like the first 
mariners, they launch into the sea of life with breasts fortified 
by oak and triple brass : their constitutions are Titanic. To 
watch them from the beaten high road of tame and ordinary 
experience, dashing and glittering through a stupendous 
steeple-chase of astounding and never-ending adventure, 
literally takes away our breath. We cannot but sigh as we 
ask ourselves, ‘‘Was life indeed, then, at any time, such an 
uncommonly pleasant holiday ] Has not the w^orld itself 
grown older and colder since those jaunty days when the 
dazzling Mr. Lorrequer drove his four-in-hand through all the 
proprieties ? Is it possible that Mr. Lorrequer s son and heir, 
whom we presume to be now a hopeful cornet in the Blues, 
can be such a merry dog as we all remember his father to 
have been ? Would not any such artless, but nof invariably 
harmless, ebullitions of youthful mirth as those recorded 
with infinite gusto in the biography of the elder gentleman, 
be now visited with the severest penalties at the disposal of 
Bow Street, and denounced with' the angriest eloquence at 
the command of the ‘ Times ’ ? We suspect that the younger 
Mr. Lorrequer is a man of much sadder complexion. It would 
not, alas ! surprise us to learn that, notwithstanding a prudent 
regard for his health, he is occasionally not altogether free 
from low spirits, especially when his natural hilarity is tem- 
pered by the prospective shadow of a competitive examination, 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


s 


or vexed by tlie aggressive attentions of the Civil Service 
Commissioners. The fact is, that times are changed with us. 
Napoleon’s Paladins are pulvts et umbra. Beau Brummel 
has paid his last debt. Duelling is a thing forsworn. Not- 
withstanding Dr. Parr’s celebrated receipt for the gout, con- 
sisting of prayer, patience, and port-wine,” this latter source 
of human comfort is all but extinct. The epitaph of it is 
already written by Mr. Cobden in the French Treaty. The 
Union is an historical reminiscence. The Encumbered Estates 
Bill has done its work. “ After life’s fitful fever,” O’Connell 
agitates no more. And Harry Lorrequer, and Charles 
O’Malley, and Jack Hinton, and Tom Burke, and Bagenal Daly, 
look down upon us from the distance of an age no longer 
ours. We have no hope ever again to meet them cantering in 
the Phoenix Park or swaggering down Sackville Street, or 
dancing at Dublin Castle. They are all “ gone prompsoi to the 
Stygian sh9re.” Like Achilles, and Ajax, and.alLthe fortes ante 
Agamemnonem, they rest in an elysium of whijcfh the beatitude 
appears to us shadowy and unreal. But t)iey have quaffed 
their last bumper, and shot their last shoU— 

“ They lie beside their nectar, and their bolts are hurled.” 

And although their glittering hosts yet hover about the fading 
splendour of the “ good old times,” as the Scandinavian 
warriors are said by the Swedish poet to hover in the light of 
sunset over the horizon of the Baltic, yet we can no more 
i’ecall them to tangible existence than we can renew the race 
of the Anakim. 

Mr. Lever has himself survived his first progeny. That in 
growing an older, he has also grown a wiser, and in some re- 
spects a sadder man, his more recent writings bear witness. 
Job’s second batch of sons and daughters, who were, doubtless, 
a much steadier set of young people than the first, could not 
have differed from that jovial creAV who were overwhelmed in 
a whirlwind whilst “ eating and drinking wine,” more strongly 
than Mr. Lever’s later works differ from his earlier ones. 

The author of ‘ Harry Lorrequer ’ has given unquestionable 
proof of powers matured by time and enriched by cultivation. 
His more recent novels evince a greater mastery in the craft 
of authorship, a larger experience, and more skilled faculty of 
construction. But whether these qualities exist in so great a 

A 2 


4 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


dcgi’ce as entirely to compensate the reader for the absence of 
that vivacity, freshness, and continuous flow of high animal 
spirits, which have rendered Mr. Lever’s first boohs so widely 
aud so justly popular, is a question which we shall presently 
have occasion to consider. Meanwhile, to say of such novels 
as ‘ Harry Lorrequer ’ and its immediate successors that they 
abound in extravagance, is to detract nothing from the merit 
of them. Youth is in itself the grandest of all extravagances ; 
and these books are an emanation from, and the embodiment 
of, all the joyous audacity of young manhood. We cannot too 
largely estimate the extent to which Mr. Lever possesses the 
merit most essential to popularity in narrative composition — 
viz. gusto. He relates incidents with a relish, and accumulates 
them with a fecundity of invention and a rapidity of move- 
ment that never flag. Of all qualities in the genius of an 
author, this is the most necessary to the successful conduct 
of narrative interest ; and we must the more admire it, 
wherever it is displayed, because it is innate, and neither 
to be acquired by labour, nor replaced by experience. It 
is to this rush and flow of vigorous animal life that we must 
attribute the indescribable attraction exerted by Homer upon 
the sympathies of all ages and conditions of men ; and we 
accord to the Father of Verse a supremacy felt to be unat- 
tainable by any other poet, in recognition (which is perhaps 
partly unconscious) of the completeness with which he has 
expressed the high spirits and dauntless health of the boyhood 
of mankind. A recent poet, who deserves to be better known, 
has said that the old gods were only men and wine.” Their 
godship is certainly the extravagant idealization of the merely 
human faculties at their highest pitch. The same extravagance 
gives to the Homeric heroes their colossal proportions. 
Achilles and Hector will, to the end of time, be a head-and- 
shoulders taller than all other men, because it is impossible 
that any man should realize so intensely, or define so dis- 
tinctly, as Homer, the supern?+nral dimensions of all natural 
faculties and sensations. To represent human beings precisely 
as they are, is not a necessary condition of art of any kind. 
A deformed saint by Massaccio may be truer in art than a 
correct anatomical study by Mr. Etty. Nor is there any 
reason why that extravagance of design wliioh dilates either 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


5 


human actions or human emotions, or even the situations of 
human life, to perfectly impossible proportions should be in 
itself a defect. For what is impossible in fact maybe proper 
in art. Ariosto is undoubtedly one of the greatest nan-ative 
j^octs, and it is probably in his extravagance that we shall 
find the secret of his indefinable power. The humour of 
Quevedo is often most irresistible when it consists entirely 
of what might be called pure extravagance of expression. 
And such extravagance as is tob e found in Mr. Lever’s earlier 
novels is occasioned by the overflow of that exuberant vitality 
which constitutes their special excellence. The plan and cha- 
racter of these books are obviously panoramic rather than 
dramatic. It is by the narration of humorous incident that 
the interest of the reader is to be carried on. For this, rapidity 
and gusto are the best of all qualifications. No great writer 
of narrative fiction has ever been wholly without them. Le 
8agc possessed them largely ; they are to be detected in 
the sadder and more profound genius of Cervantes ; they are 
not wanting to the elaborate minuteness of De Foe ; they give 
vigour to the most envenomed creations of Swift ; they are 
remarkable in Sir Walter Scott, than whom, certainly, there 
is no happier master of the art of telling a story. Fielding, 
though his genius philosophizes while it frolics, was far from 
neglecting those means of exciting interest which depend 
upon the rapid movement and striking eftect of incident. 
Lut Smollett certainly possessed the gift of high spirits to a 
pre-eminent degree. The extraordinary impulse and animation 
of his genius is such, that his narrative, though often ex- 
tremely digressive, always rushes away with the reader, and 
carries him, like a runaway horse, over every obstacle, turbine 
rajjtus ingenii'' 

In this respect Mr. Lever, of all modern novelists, most 
resembles the author of ‘ Roderick Random.’ There is, 
indeed, not only much similarity of character between the 
works of Charles Lever and those of Tobias Smollett, but 
also no inconsiderable coincidence in the circumstances 
which may possibly have given to the genius of both authors 
something of the same tendency. 

The Irish humorist, like his great Scotch predecessor, was, 
we believe, brought up for the medical profession, and for 


3 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


some years practised as a doctor. Whether indeed Mr. Lever 
found his profession as little profitable to him as it would 
appear to have proved to Dr. Smollett, or whether he was 
simply impelled to abandon so sober a career by the con- 
sciousness of those powers of humour and that facility of 
composition which he evinced at an early age, we do not 
know ; but it is difficult to believe that the pen which wrote 
‘Charles O’Malley,’ or that which wrote ‘Peregrine Pickle,’ 
would have been equally well employed in signing prescrip- 
tions. To the experience of medical life, however, to the 
opportunities for the study of character thereby afforded, and 
the quickness of penetration and habits of observation thus 
acquired, it is highly probable that both Smollett and Lever 
have owed much excellent material for humorous fiction. 
Both authors appear to have early evinced, and long retained, 
an extreme predilection for a military life. Smollett, indeed, 
never forgave his grandfather for thwarting his inclination to 
enter the army ; and he never omits an occasion for intro- 
ducing into his novels some description of martial scenes and 
events. There is fair reason to attribute to both Smollett 
and Lever some carelessness, not so much of composition, as 
of writing. They both appear to have written hastily. Of 
Smollett it is told that (whilst writing the ‘Adventures of Sir 
Launcelot Greaves ’) “ when post-time drew near he used to 
retire for half-an-hour or an hour to prepare the necessary 
quantity of copy^ as it is technically called in the printing- 
house, which he never gave himself the trouble to correct, or 
even to read once.” And we may assume that IMr. Lever, 
speaking through the mask of Harry Lorrequer, is not very 
wide of the truth when he says, “ I wrote as I felt — some- 
times in good spirits, sometimes in bad — always carelessly — ■ 
for, God help me ! I can do no better.” Smollett is, indeed, 
the more correct, writer of the two ; his style, though often 
hasty, is never inaccurate, and, for the most part, his English 
is very pure. Mr. Lever’s language, on the contrary, is in 
places so heedless that the grammar of it is sometimes more 
conventional than correct. In one place he speaks of “ pur- 
chasing a boon,” and in another he describes an Irish member 
waiting “till the House was done prayers.” Nevertheless he 
has great powers of description. He represents objects and 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


7 


actions with a touch that is always vivid, often masterly. 
He is always happy in the open air ; in his love of nature and 
hearty relish of out-of-door life, as well as in the force and 
fidelity with which he depicts them, he is certainly unsur- 
passed, and perhaps unequalled, by Smollett himself. The 
veracity, freshness, and power with which he describes 
scenery is deserving, we think, of higher appreciation than 
it has yet received. His pictures of Irish landscape, sea 
scenery, and all effects of wind and weather, are full of the 
truth and intensity which belong to poetry. It is for such 
reasons all the more to be regretted that an author entitled 
on so many grounds to hold a permanent place in literature 
should ever be forgetful of the duty which is owed by eminent 
writers to the language they bequeath to posterity. Some 
expressions throughout Mr. Lever’s works, so incorrect as to 
be obvious oversights, have passed through so many editions 
that we must believe the 6 yeypa(j)a yiypat^a sentiment to be 
in him unusually strong, and that what he writes he never 
revises. The bent of such minds as those of Mr. Lever and 
Dr. Smollett is instinctively conservative, loyal, and inclined 
to the maintenance of institutions which have been tested 
and endeared by time. On the one hand, a shrewd apprecia- 
tion of life as it is, and a keen sense of the ludicrous and 
incongruous, indisposes them to indulge in the dreams of 
democracy ; whilst, on the other hand, a certain chivahy of 
disposition induces them to side with a cause which, by the 
very nature of it, must always be that of the party attacked. 
Conservatism, therefore, has found in each of these writers a 
warm and ready adherent. To continue any further this 
passing comparison between the two authors would be tedious 
and pedantic ; but if we turn to the books themselves, we 
cannot but remark a resemblance which in many respects is 
striking. 

The merits as well as the defects of both writers are, for 
the most part, of the same kind. Their humour does not 
always rise above fun, their fun sometimes degenerates into 
farce. Criticism, which is applicable to such books as ‘Harry 
Lorrequer ’ and ‘ Charles O’Malley ’ may equally be applied to 
‘Koderick Kandom’ and ‘Peregrine Pickle.’ We can feel 
little sympathy for the heroes themselves, and still less for 


8 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


the greater part of the personages by whom we find them 
surrounded. Roderick Random is a low-minded, selfish, 
unamiable character. Harry Lorrequer is not much more 
thoughtful of the feelings of others, and his various misdeeds 
are only not amenable to the gravest censure because they 
render gravity impossible, and compel the reader himself to 
become an accomplice in their impish frolic. Peregrine 
Pickle is a brutal savage, indulging an almost fiendish delight 
in the prosecution of the most barbarous practical jokes. 
Charles O’^Ialley, though much less repulsive, is certainly a 
brawling mischievous fellow, whose acquaintance we, for our 
own part, must confess we should little desire out of a book. 
The female characters are often too merely animal, or else too 
shadowy and indistinct, to inspire much interest. Of the 
rest of the dramatis personce the larger portion is often made 
up of adventurers, blacklegs, practical jokers, and such oddi- 
ties and odds and ends of humanity as seem only made to 
furnish material for practical jokes. The heroes ramble from 
page to page, through scenes and situations almost uncon- 
nected, and characters which crowd one portion of the book 
hardly appear in another. 

Yet, when the critic has summed up all such apparent 
grounds of objection, he will find that they constitute no real 
defect in the aid; of these romances, w’hich can only be 
criticized in accordance with the laws which they themselves 
create. The fact is. Art does not make Genius, but Genius 
makes Art. “ Genius,” says Kant, in his ‘ Analysis of the 
Sublime,’ “is the talent to produce that of which one cannot 
give the determinating mle, and not the ability that one can 
show ill doing that which one can learn by a rule. Hence 
originality is its first quality.” Every writer of original 
genius has his owm object, and his ov/n way of carrying it out ; 
and his success or failure can only be fairly estimated by 
reference to the object which he has himself had in view, not 
that which the critic expects him to have had in view. The 
barbarous conduct of the clown in the pantomime, the elfish 
perversity and duplicity of the Pierot in the French Harle- 
quinade, and the excessive profligacy of the Don Juan in the 
play, inspire no disgust, outrage no moral sentiment, revolt 
no sympathy", but only excite innocent and hearty laughter. 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


9 


AYhen a clown trips up a baker in the street, wheels him 
off in his own barrow, trundles him into his own oven, and 
there bakes him alive, the fate of the baker excites no pity, 
and the inhumanity of his persecutor no indignation. And 
when Harry Lorrequer initiates his proceedings in Dublin, by 
gratuitously detailing to a perfectly inoffensive stranger an 
elaborate falsehood, and afterwards shoots the man he has 
insulted, without the least consciousness of any reason why 
he should fight him at all, we laugh at the drollery of the 
misdeed described, without for a moment attributing either 
to ourselves or the author any participation in the immorality 
of the conduct which causes our merriment. We know 
beforehand that ail such victims arc only men of straw, pur- 
posely so contrived as to minister to the fitting spirit of mis- 
chievous fun which presides over that entirely fantastical 
world wherein all that passes is too impossible in fact to come 
within the jurisdiction of any moral law, and yet sufficiently 
real in art to enthral attention and create pleasurable emo- 
tion. It is in securing this result that the art and genius of 
the author consist ; and we believe it is no less an authority 
than Sir Walter Scott who has said, “If it be the highest 
praise of pathetic composition that it draws forth tears, why 
should it not be esteemed the greatest excellence of the 
ludicrous that it compels laughter ? The one tribute is at 
least as genuine an expression of natural feeling as the 
other.” Certainly, in the power of producing effects irre- 
sistibly ludicrous, and instantaneously destructive of all 
gravity, Mr. Lever is pre-eminent, and may challenge com- 
parison with any writer, living or dead. Nor is even the 
broad fun of Mr. Lever’s earliest novels destitute of passages 
which indicate powers of thoughtful humour and subtle 
irony. Sparks’s story, in ‘ Harry Lorrequer,’ and the descrip- 
tion in it of the man who loves a mad girl — his sensations on 
discovering her insanity, and hers on finding that he is not 
the Ace of Spades, and that she has taken “the nephew of a 
Manchester cotton-spinner, wuth a face like printed calico, for 
a trump card, and the best in the pack,” is told with an 
irresistible drollery which only partially conceals a depth 
of grave sad satire and pathetic allegory. The story of the 
Knight of Kerry’s conversation with the Irish tenant, who 


10 


THE WORKS OP CHARLES LEVER. 


earns his ^^rints” by personating a wild man in a London 
showroom, has in it much more than the merely ludicrous. 
The origin of the story would undoubtedly appear to be 
Hibernian, but it has also been told by Paul de Kock, with 
little more alteration than that of substituting Frenchmen for 
Irishmen, and Paris for London. Mr. Lever’s version of the 
story, however, is far more humorous, and in all respects in- 
finitely better than that of the French novelist. But of all 
the chai’acters in Mr. Lever’s earlier romances, that which 
affords most evidence of this higher kind of humour, is 
undoubtedly Mickey Free ; and the story (as recounted by 
himself) of how he got his fathers soul out of purgatory, is 
so excellently well told, and is so admirable a specimen of 
that sly wit which is characteristic of the Irish peasant, that 
it is with great reluctance that we refrain from extracting it. 

The whole character of Mickey Free is indeed inimitable. 
We have no hesitation in affirming it to be the most perfect 
type of Irish humour that has ever been given to the world. 
It is perfectly sustained from first to last, and nothing in the 
conception of it is exaggerated or incongruous. Mickey Free 
is the Irish Sam Weller. He has, in fact, this advantage over 
Sam Weller, that he is the more thoroughly national and 
comprehensive type of the two. It is impossible but what 
this creation, which is in many respects the most felicitous of 
all Mr. Lever’s creations, should live for ever as a distinct 
embodiment of national character. It must always have a 
historical value ; and it is indeed so truthfully and so com- 
prehensively drawn, that whoever has since attempted to 
describe in future the Irish peasant, has appeared to copy 
rather from Lever than from nature. Mickey Free, however^ 
is but one (although, to our thinking, the best) picture in Mr. 
Lever’s large gallery of Irish portraits. 

The Knight op Gwynne is another equally characteristic ; 
and it is perhaps more delicately, although less vividly, 
delineated. Nothing can be more complete than this elabo- 
rate picture of a character which has ceased to exist- — the 
high-bred, ill-starred Irish gentleman of the days before the 
Union. It is a strange anomaly, combining all the courtly 
grace and refinement of a Sir Charles Grandison with the 
rude, half-civilized life of a Bob Boy; at once splendid 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. If: 

and spendthrift ; chivalrous in all things, careful in nothing 
alienating prosperity, yet elevating misfortune, and always- 
dehonnaire in the midst of disaster ; every inch a gentleman, 
yet just such a gentleman as seems destined by Providence* 
to ruin himself, and hasten the ruin of the class to which he 
belongs. The Knight of Gwynne is certainly one of the 
most lovable characters that Mr. Lever has ever drawn ; and 
he monopolizes so much of our sympathy, that we hope to be 
forgiven for extending less of it than he probably deserves to 
Bagenal Daly, notwithstanding the vigour with which that 
character is drawn, the remarkable originality of it, and the 
fidelity with which it represents and sustains a most peculiar 
combination of qualities, intellectual as well as moral. 

We may, however, note here by the way that this singular- 
character is the first of Mr. Lever’s earlier creations, in 
which he has given evidence of that shrewd experience of 
mankind, that practical worldly wit, and power of philosophi- 
cal epigram, into which his natural humour has developed 
itself in more recent works ; and there are passages of dia- 
logue between “ the Howling Wind ” and his Irish Scot which 
not unfrcquently remind one of the dry humorous wisdom 
which abounds in such creations as Dalgetty and Sancho- 
Panza. This work is indeed a most complete and varied 
picture of Irish life and manners. The book is written with 
a profound knowledge of the subject of it ; and, without 
overloading the narrative with political or philosoj)hical dis- 
cussion, the author never loses sight of a thoughtful purpose ^ 
he penetrates beneath the surface of the society which he 
describes, and lays bare, with the ease and accuracy of a skil- 
ful anatomist, all the minutest causes and remotest effects 
of those social and political phenomena which in Ireland 
preceded the Union. The Castlereagh policy is sketched 
with the masterly hand of a man who has thoroughly com- 
prehended both the nature of the measure itself, and that of 
the country to which it referred. The whole epoch of that 
time is indeed reproduced, investigated, and criticized by 
Mr. Lever, with an accuracy of delineation and depth of 
reflection which show him to be not only an admirable nove- 
list, but something also of a philosophical politician. AVhat. 
is especially to be noted in this book is, that all the principal 


12 


THE WOUKS of CHARLES LEVER. 


characters therein are the representatives of geneva rather 
than of species — that is to say, they image and embody large 
aggregates of national character rather than individual and 
special peculiarities. Creation of this kind necessitates 
many high powers of thought as well as of fancy ; and 
although Mr. Lever has not attempted it so often as he gives 
us reason to wish, yet, wherever he has done so, his success 
cannot be disputed. The old Irish proprietor, the old Irish 
domestic, the petty usurer, the Irish attorney, founders of a 
new race of landlords ; the Irishman of the north, and the 
Irishman of the south — are all admirably described in the 
^ Knight of Gwynne.’ Frecny, the robber, is also a very 
well-drawn character ; and the escape of Freeny from tlie 
burning jail is a scene which in power and terror fully justi- 
fies the admiration of it formerly entertained by Miss Edge- 
worth. 

Mr. Lever has, indeed, given many proofs that he is by no 
means deficient in the faculty of exciting terror, and some of 
his night-rides, his battle-scenes, and robber-meetings have 
about them a palpability and intensity which may fairly en- 
title them to compete for praise with SmolletFs much admired 
sea-engagements. It is as having given the completest and 
most intense expression to Irish humour, and furnished fami- 
liar types of almost every distinction of Irish character, that 
Mr. Lever, whatever may be his other merits, will, in our 
opinion, maintain a solid and permanent reputation as a 
humorist. Scenes which, in such novels as ‘ O’Malley ’ and 
^Hinton,’ may perhaps appear to Cockney criucs as simple 
impossibilities, are truly facts of Irish life ; and Mr. Lever 
has so little caricatured or exaggerated tne habits and charac- 
ters of Irishmen, that those parts of his Irish novels which 
appear absurdly unreal are only ridiculously true. It would 
be entirely be^mnd the scope and purpose of these remarks 
to discuss the relative value of any really original conception ; 
but we see no reason to doubt why Mickey Free, and Major 
Monsoon, and Kerry O’Leary, and Baby Blake, J\lary Martin, 
and Kate O’Donoghue, and Kenny, and Mrs. Dodd, should 
not live as long as Jeanie Deans, or Matthew Bramble, or 
Squire Weston, or any other distinctly-recognized type of na- 
tional character. 


THE WOllKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


13 


That conviction which is entertained by Irishmen, not 
without a certain self-satisfaction, that their characters are 
all but incomprehensible to Englishmen ; the humorous en- 
joyment which they derive from the consciousness that their 
ways and habits are a continual source of dismay and bewil- 
derment to their fellow-subjects over the water ; and a certain 
sense of not unnatural resentment, with which, some years 
ago, the Irish people must have been disposed to regard every 
attempt on the part of Government to shape out or constrain 
the pattern of their national life into formal accordance 
with the modes and manners of an alien and dominant race 
— have furnished Mr. Lever with many opportunities for 
drollery at the expense of Cockney critics. An amusing 
piece of good-humoured caricature in this sense occurs in the 
story of the gentleman who never saw daylight in Ireland, 
which occupies the twenty-fourth chapter of ‘Jack Hinton.’ 
Equally comical in its way is the quiz upon Mr. Pretty man, 
the “ intelligent traveller.’’ 

As instances of easy and natural Irish humour, we may 
refer, by the way, to the oration delivered by Kerry O’Leary 
over the ruins of the doctor’s gig, in the fourteenth chapter 
of ‘The O’Honoghue,’ and the priest’s moonlit ride in ‘Jack 
Hinton.’ Mr. Lever has also shown, in the death of IMary 
Martin, that he can, when he pleases, be pathetic as well as 
humorous. His female characters are seldom very refined 
or very interesting. In depicting a romping “ wild Irish girl,” 
a wily adventuress, a Continental demirep, or a pretentious 
petticoated parvenue, he is never at fault ; but his women 
are fur the most part either rouces^ romps, or Xantippes ; and 
the majestic visions which animate old Chaucer’s ‘Legend of 
Good W^'ornen,’ and inspired Wordsworth’s picture of the 
“perfect woman, nobly planned,” never flit across his 
pages. If, indeed, modern mothers and daughters are only 
half as knowing, vigilant, and unscrupulous in their designs 
upon that portion of humanity, who have not only breeches 
but breeches pockets, no batchelor can have a chance against 
the female foe ; all unmarried men are marching through an 
enemy’s country, in which they must expect at every step ta 
have tlieir flank turned by some astute matrimonial manceu vre. 

We cannot, however, sufficiently praise Mr. Lever for his 


14 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


'evidently hearty abhorrence of all sentimentality and false 
writing. The most tempting occasion never betrays him into 
this — he is always manly, simple, and sincere in his treatment 
ef sentiment and passion. This is no small virtue in a modern 
novelist — many of our modern writers, like our modern singers, 
^ire always m falsetto; and the public is in both cases always 
entrapped into applause. 

Nor can we pass from the consideration of Mr. Lever’s 
earlier romances without according our cordial approbation 
of the admirable ballads, fighting songs, and drinking songs, 
which are interspersed throughout the pages of those books. 
These songs are full of spirit — they have all the drollery, 
dash, and devilry peculiar to the land of the shamrock and 
shillelah. If they have here and there a flavour of poteen, 
the scent of the heather and the breath of the mountain 
breeze are equally strong in them. It is almost impossible 
to read them without singing them, and almost impossible 
to hear them sung without wishing to fight, drink, or dance. 
They bubble forth without premeditation from the depth of 
a most joyous conviction in the 

“ Nunc est bibend um, nunc pede libero 
Pulsanda tellus.” 

AVe believe that Mr. Lever’s later novels are, on the whole, 
less generally popular than those by which his reputation as 
a writer was first acquired. This is natural, for many reasons 
quite independent of the merits or defects of the works them- 
selves. The public is seldom of one mind with an author in 
comparing the relative merit of his works, especially where 
such comparison is between early and subsequent efforts. 
The author is naturally inclined to esteem most highly those 
of his works upon which he is conscious of having expended 
most labour ; the public, on the contrary, are inclined to 
prefer those to the enjoyment of which they have given the 
least labour. The first works of an original writer take us 
by surprise. They issue unexpectedly from the unknown, 
our enjoyment of them is spontaneous, and the delight occa- 
sioned by the freshness of feeling with which the author 
writes is increased by the freshness of sympathy with which 
the public reads. Every man’s favourite poet is the poet he 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


15 


first learned to love under the summer trees in his boyhood. 
New poets only address new generations. The authors which 
most agreeably impress us are those which we read when 
most capable of receiving agreeable impressions ; that is to 
say, in youth. We cannot even entirely renew for the sub- 
sequent works of the same author those sensations of delight 
which we derived from our first acquaintance with him, when 
he was young to us, and we were young to ourselves ; and 
in proportion as we experience this difficulty on our own part, 
we are inclined to resent more naturally than justly the in- 
ability of the author to overcome it. Long familiarity, more- 
over, with the name of an author, often indisposes the public 
to expect much novelty from increased familiarity with the 
mind of him. Nothing is so reluctantly conceded to a popular 
writer as superiority to himself. The more readily his claim 
to attention and sympathy has been admitted in one direction, 
the more resolutely is it resisted in every other. A previous 
success is often the greatest hindrance to a subsequent repu- 
tation. People are sometimes startled into applause by the 
first revelation of an original mind ; they are generally on 
their guard against any inconsiderate approval of a second. 
And as the process by which the mind of an author passes 
from one phase into another is usually gradual, and marked 
by various stages of development more or less imperfect and 
unsatisfactory, the advance made is not always immediately 
noticeable, and the recognition accorded to it is naturally 
slow and dubious. This must be especially the case with an 
author who has introduced himself to the public rather as a 
boon-companion than a moralist. We have often heard it said 
of Mr. Lever that he is much less funny than he used to be ; 
which is indeed true. But when it is asked why he does not 
resort to the style and matter of his early novels, and implied 
that he should write nothing but ‘ Harry Lorrequer’s ’ and 
^Charles O’Malley’s,’ we must express the conviction that 
compliance with any such demand, even if it were not purely 
impossible, would be altogether unadvisable. We could not 
ourselves bring to the perusal of repeated ‘Harry Lorre- 
quer’s ’ an undirninished capacity to be amused by them. 
Consuetudine vilescunt. The piper might pipe as of old, but 
who would dance to his piping ? Non eadem est cetas, non 


16 * 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


mens. We cannot blame ]\[r. Lever for abandoning a vein of 
humour whicli he ha's the merit of having exhausted ; but 
it is nevertheless obvious, that in relinquishing that particular 
kind of fiction in which he is allowed to have excelled, I\Ir. 
Lever has withdrawn from a territory of which he was sole 
and undisputed proprietor, and entered upon one in which, 
whatever the acquirements he may bring to the cultivation of 
it, he is not without competitors. 

It must be conceded that what we miss in Mr. Lever’s later 
publications is that freshness, vivacity, and exuberant wealth 
of animal spirits, which gave to his earlier novels their 
chief charm. Although the relative merit of his recent works 
is decidedly unequal, some of them being much better than 
others, and all of them being better in one part than in an- 
other ; yet there is in the majority of them a sameness of 
subject and material wLich does not give fair play to the 
powers employed upon them. Upon this point we shall speak 
more fully by-and-by ; but whatever objections we may pre- 
sently have to make in detail to some of Mr. Lever’s last 
books, we have no hesitation in expressing the opinion, that 
amongst these books are to be found proofs of a genius 
richer, maturer, and more pleasing than any which is ap- 
parent in the earlier works of the same author. Indeed, ‘ The 
Dodd Family Abroad,’ which has not been published many 
years, is in our opinion the best of all Mr. Lever’s works. 
He has written nothing at any time comparable to the letters 
of Henry Dodd ; nor could there be any better evidence 
than what is afforded throughout the pages of this delightful 
and good-humoured satire, that the genius of the author, if 
it has lost much of that physical animation which is the ar- 
bitrary gift of youth, has acquired with years that thoughtful 
and more pleasing humour which is the result of enlarged ex- 
perience and deeper sympathy with mankind. This chronicle 
of the adventures of ‘The Dodd Family Abroad,’ like 
‘ The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker,’ Smollett’s last and 
most pleasing fiction, is a narrative thrown into epistolary 
form, and related by the actors themselves, who are tims 
made with great skill to be, as it were, the unconscious ex- 
ponents of their own characters, follies, and foibles, as well 
as the historiana of their own fates. We do not desire to 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


17 


suggest even a critical comparison between this clever ro- 
mance and that master-piece of Smollett, which will doubtless 
remain unrivalled as long as the English literature endures. 
But the most conspicuous merit in ‘The Dodd Family ’is. 
that each character in the story is so contrived as to evoke, 
in the most humorous form, the peculiarities of all the 
others, without any violation of the individuality assigned to 
itself. The book, which is a sort of prose ‘Fudge Family,' 
deeper, broader, and more comprehensive than Moore’s clever 
satire, is a good-humoured but unsparing mockery of “fals-e 
pretences ” all over the world. If the dramatic power ex- 
ist in the capacity to realize and express with an accuracy, 
too great for mere conjecture, other people’s habits of thought 
and feeling, Mr. Lever has shown in this book more of such 
power than in anything else he has ever written. The hu- 
mour of his earlier books is almost entirely superficial. It 
deals purely with external things, hnd is little more than any 
extraordinarily acute sense of the ludicrous in situation and 
circumstance. In this book the humour is of that rarer kind 
which plays less with external and accidental peculiarities 
than with men’s modes of thought, and the manner in which 
different minds arc impressed by the same facts, or operated 
on by the same influences. The difference of the result in 
each case is great. The highest humour is inseparable from 
a profound sympathy with human nature, and is therefore 
always tinged with sadness. For man is too grand a subject, 
after all, for eternal practical jokes, and even the most de- 
faced and misfeatured humanity should be safe from un- 
mitigated laughter. The fun which abounds, however, in 
Mr. Lever's more youthful writings, ignores the existence of 
sorrow in any sense but that of hateful deformity, to be con- 
templated as little as pos.sible : and consequently this sort of 
fun, incompatible as it is with any deep sympathy, is never 
quite free from a certain clement of cruelty, inherent to the 
strong animal life of early youth. But what is most delight- 
ful in the letters of “ K. I.” is that loving, tender capacity to 
feel for and with humanity in all the forms of its imperfec- 
tion and weakness — that tendency to live in the life of others, 
and to draw from the various thoughts and acts and manners 
of mankind constant food for reflection, which breathe 


B 


18 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


tliroiigli the playful satire, and furnish material to the genial 
humour of those charming letters. And though the author 
appears to have given fuller scope both to his own sentiments 
and his own experience in the letters of “ K. I.,” yet the 
same spirit of kindly humour, and the same shrewd ap- 
preciation of social characteristics, are apparent in all the 
epistles, even where the drollery most approaches to carica- 
ture, as in those of the Irish servant-girl who complains to 
her friends at home of being like ‘‘ a pelican on a dissolute 
island.’’ 

Of all Mr. Dodd’s numerous misfortunes, those under 
which his patience is most pathetic, and which enlist our 
W'armest sympathies, are certainly his domestic and conjugal 
afflictions. Who that remembers or anticipates matrimonial 
experience can read without a cold shudder this description 
of the household tactics adopted on great occasions by Mrs. 
Dodd ?— 

“ For the last week Mrs. D. had adopted a kind of warfare, at 
which she, I’ll be bound to say, has few equals and no superior — a 
species of irregular attack, at all times and on all subjects, by in- 
nuendo and insinuation, so dexterously thrown out as to defy opposi- 
tion ; for you might as well take your musket to keep off the 
mosquitoes ! What she was driving at I never could guess, for the 
assault came on every flank and in all manner of ways. If I was 
dressed a little more carefully than usual, she called attention to my 
‘ smartness if less so, she hinted that I was probably going out ‘on 
the sly.* If I stayed at home, I was waiting for somebody ; if I 
went out, it was to ‘ meet them.’ But all this guerilla warfare, gave 
way at last to a grand attack, ^when I ventured to remonstrate about 
some extravagance or other. ‘It came well from me,’ she burst forth 
wdth indignant anger — ‘ it came well from me to talk of the little 
necessary expenses of the family — the bit they ate, and the clothes 
on their backs.’ She spoke as if they were Mandans or Iroquois, and 
lived in a wigwam ! ” 

Poets, we are told by one of them, “ learn in suffering what 
they teach in song,” and philosophers acquire wisdom from 
their own afflictions. Mr. Dodd, in the true spirit of the 
philosophy preached by JSschylus, Trap’ aKoinas acoeppoueLVf 
thus moralizes on his own misfortune : — 

“Ah, Tom, my boy, it ’s all very good fun to laugh at Keeley, or 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


19 


Buckstone, or any other of those diverting vagabonds who can con- 
vulse the house with such a theme, but in real life the Farce is down- 
right Tragedy. There is not a single comfort or consolation of your 
life that is not kicked clean from under you ! A system of normal 
agitation is a fine thing, they tell us, in politics, but it is a cruel 
adjunct of domestic life ! Everything you say, every look you give, 
every letter you seal, or every note you receive, are counts in a 
mysterious indictment against you, till at last you are afraid to blow 
your nose, lest it be taken for a signal to the fat widow lady that is 
caressing her poodle at the window over the way ! ” 

But his greatest trial of all is the prospect of a sudden 
accession of fortune to the ambitious partner of his bosom. 
His excessive alarm at the possibility of a contingency so fatal 
to domestic happiness is very humorous, and his opinions 
upon the subject of legacies to married ladies in small circum- 
stances are evidently the result of profound and painful 
experience. 

“To tell you the plain truth, Tom, I don’t know a greater mis- 
fortune for a man that has married a wife without money, than to 
discover at the end of some fifteen or twenty years that somebody has 
left her a few hundred pounds ! It is not only that she conceives 
visions of unbounded extravagance, and raves about all manner of 
expense, but she begins to fancy herself an heiress that was thrown 
away, and imagines wonderful destinies she might have arrived at, if 
she hadn’t had the bad luck to meet you. For a real crab-apple of 
discord, I ’ll back a few hundreds in the Three per Cents, against all 
the family jars that ever were invented. 

“Save us, then, from this, if you can, Tom. There must surely 
be twenty ways to avoid the legacy ; and so that ]\Irs. D. doesn’t hear 
of it, I’d rather you’d prove her illegitimate, than allow her to 
succeed to this bequest. I ’ll not enlarge upon all I feel about this 
subject, hoping that by your skill and address we may never hear 
more of it ; but I tell you, frankly, I ’d face the small-pox with a 
stouter heart than the news of succeeding to the M‘Carthy in- 
heritance.” 

The adventures of a vulgar Irish family abroad in search 
of economy combined with pretension and display, afford I\Ir. 
Lever a good opportunity for satirising the social and political 
condition of a great number of foreign States. In doing 
this he has shown not only an affluent experieiice of Coiiti- 
irental lifC; and a quick perception of all social phenomena, 

B 2 


20 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


but also a very uncommon amount of shrewd common-sense 
and sound political judgment. We must say the satire is well 
deserved and unerringly aimed. Nothing escapes. The state of 
society, the conduct of government, the foreign and domestic 
policy, the administration of justice, the civil and military 
jurisdictions, the morals and manners of Continental capitals, 
are sharply canvassed. The character, too, of Kenny Dodd, in its 
strange admixture of childishness and wisdom, ignorance of 
the world and knowledge of mankind, and that subdued humo- 
rous consciousness which it betrays of the utter worthlessness 
of those influences to which it is ever an easy victim, greatly 
facilitates the indulgence of that moralizing vein in which 
Mr. Lever reviews almost every possible aspect of society. 
From the moment in which K. I. discovers that “shameless- 
ness is the grand characteristic of foreign life,” and that “ one 
picks up the indecency much easier than the irregular verbs,” 
the wisdom of his private reflections keeps pace with the 
folly of his public proceedings. 

We extract the following passage from Mr. Dodd^s reflec- 
tions upon geology and the sciences, viewed in their relation 
to education and politics, because it is a favourable sample 
of a particular kind of humour in which Mr. Lever’s later 
writings, and especially the work from which the passage is 
taken, are equally fertile and felicitous. It is a humour 
which consists in turning some? indisputable truth upside 
down or inside out when the reader is least expecting it. 
The effect is often irresistible. 

“ For a man who has daughters abroad, my advice is — stick to the 
sciences. Grey sandstone is safer than the polka, and there’s not as 
dangerous an experiment in all chemistry as singing duets with some 
black-hearded blackguard from Naples or Palermo. Now mind, Tom, 
this counsel of mine applies to the education of the young, for when 
people come to the forties, you may rely upon it, if they set about 
learning anything, they’ll have the devil for a schoolmaster. What 
does all the geology mean ? Junketting, Tom — nothing but junket- 
ting ! Primitive rock is another name for a Pic-nic, and what they 
call Quai-tz is a figurative expression for iced champagne. Just reflect 
for a moment and see what it comes to. You can enter a protest 
against family extravagances when they take the shape of balls and 
Boirees, but what are you to do against botanical excursions and anti- 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


21 


quarlan researclics ? It’s like writing yourself down Goth at once to 
oppose those. ‘ Oh, papa hates chemistry ; he despises natural his- 
tory,’ that’s the cry at once, and they hold me up to ridicule just in 
the way the rascally Protestant newspapers did Dr. Cullen, for saying 
that he didn’t believe the world was round. If the liberty of the 
subject be worth anything — if the right for which these same Pro- 
testants are always prating, private judgment, be the great privilege 
they deem it — why shouldn’t Dr. Cullen have his own opinion about 
the shape of the earth? He can say, ‘It suits 7)ie to think that I’m 
M'alking erect on a flat surface, and not crawling along with my head 
down, like a fly on the ceiling ! I’m happier when I believe what 
doesn’t puzzle my understanding, and I don’t want any more miracles 
than we have in the church.’ He may say that, and I’d like to know 
what harm does that do you or me ? Does it endanger the Protestant 
succession or the State religion? Not a bit of it, Tom. The -real 
fact is simply this : private judgment is a boon they mean to keep for 
themselves, and never share with their neighbours ! So far as I have 
seen of life, there’s no such tyrant as your Protestant, and for this 
reason ; it’s bad enough to force a man to believe something that he 
doesn’t like, but it’s ten times worse to make him disbelieve what he’s 
well satisfied with ; and that’s exactly what they do. Even on the 
ground of common humanity it is indefensible. If my private judg- 
ment goes in favour of saints’ toe-nails and martyrs’ shin-bones, I have 
a right to my opinion, and you have no right to attack it. Besides, 
I won’t be badgered into what it may suit somebody else to think. 
My opinion is like my flannel-waistcoat, that I’ll take off or put on as 
the weather requires ; and I think it very cruel that I must wear mine 
simply because you feel cold.” 

When ]\Ir. Dodd moralizes on the field of Waterloo, his 
words are the w’ords of wisdom. Could Mr. Mill himself be 
more logical on the subjeet of Divine Eight I All the political 
philosophers in the world could add but little to this pithy 
summary of the case, as between kings and peoples : — 

“I knoAv you’ll reply to me with your old argument about Legiti- 
macy and Divine Eight, and all that kind of thing. But, my dear 
Tom, for the matter of that, haven’t I a divine right to my ancestral 
estate of TullylickmiElatterley ; and look Avhat they’re going to do 
with it, to-morrow or next day ! ’T is much Commissioner Longfield 
would mind, if I begged to defer the sale on the ground of ‘divine 
right.’ Kirifjs are exactly like landlords; they can't do ichat they 
like with their own, hard as it may seem to say so. They have their 
obligations and their duties; and if they fail in them, they come into 


22 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


the Encumbered Estates Court just like us — ay, and just like us, they 
‘ take very little by their motion.’ 

“I know it’s very hard to be turned out of your ‘holding.’ I can 
imagine the feelings with which a man would quit such a comfortable 
quarter as the Tuileries, and such a nice place for summer as Ver- 
sailles ; Dodsborough is too fresh in my mind to leave any doubt on 
this point: but there’s another side of the question, Tom. What 
were they there for? You’ll call out, ‘This is all Socialism and 
Democracy, and the devil knows what else.’ jMaybe I’ll agree with 
you. Ala^'be I’ll say, I don’t like the doctrine myself. Maybe I’ll 
tell you that I think the old time was pleasantest, when if we pressed 
a little hard to-day, why, we were all the kinder to-morrow, and both 
ruler and ruled looked more leniently on each other’s faults. But say 
what w^e will — do what we will— these days are. gone by, and they’ll 
not come back again. There’s a set of fellows at work, all over the 
world, telling the people about their rights. Some of these are veiy 
acute and clever chaps, that don’t overstate the case ; they neither go 
off into any flights about Universal Equality, or any balderdash about 
our being of the same stock ; but they stick to two or three hard 
propositions, and they say, ‘ BonH 'pay more for anytTimg than you 
can get it for — that's free trade ; dorCt pay for anything you dorit 
leant — thafs a hloio at the Church Establishment ; don't pay for 
soldiers if you don't want to fight — that's at a ‘ standing army and 
aboxe all, when you haven't a pair of breeches to your back, don't be 
buying embroidered small-clothes for L or ds-in- Waiting or Gentlemen 
of the Bedchamber.' But here I am again, running away from 
Waterloo, just as if I was a Belgian," 

K. I. has certainly no pretension to bo a faultless philoso- 
pher, but he is a very pleasant one. Montaigne would have 
chosen him for a companion. Moli^re would have sympa- 
thised with and loved him. He has so large a sympathy for 
human nature, that his own claim upon that of the reader is 
irresistible ; and so kindly and compassionate a feeling for 
the imperfections of mankind, that we follow him with 
undiminished affection through all the faults and follies that 
he so frankly attributes to himself. He so innocently pleads 
guilty to the occasional “delight of doing wrong;” there is 
something so natural in the touch of envy with which he re- 
marks that “India-rubber itself is not so elastic as a bad cha- 
racter,” and so sly an appeal to commiseration in his candid 
avowal, “ I don’t want to disparage principle, no more than 
I do a great balance at Coutts’s, or anything else that I don’t 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 

possess myself,” that all such good-humoured self-accusations 
are at once understood to be among the philosophical para- 
doxes peculiar to that vein of banter which proves all problems 
by the ad absurdum argument, and which he frequently in- 
dulges at his own expense. Mr. Lever is, indeed, so happy in 
the management of dialogue, and in the art of allowing his 
characters to evolve themselves without interference from 
the author, that there is every reason to think he would be 
successful in the comic drama : and were he to exercise his 
genius in that direction we have little doubt but what he 
would do much to rescue the English stage from its present 
discreditable obligation to the charity of third-rate French 
play- Wrights. Our extracts from ‘The Dodd Family’ have 
extended over a larger space than we could well afford, 
because it is our sincere opinion that Mr. Lever has written 
nothing comparable to this book ; and without ample refer- 
ence to the work itself, it was hardly possible to justify the 
opinion which we have not hesitated, to express about it. 

The ‘Dodd Family’ is an elaborate denunciation of the 
folly of “ people living upon false pretences and ‘ Davenport 
Dunn,’ which deals with the crimes rather than the follies of 
society, exposes with considerable power, and an extraordinary 
knowledge of the dark side of modern civilization, the in- 
numerable “ fraudulent pretences ” of roguery in every rank 
of life. The character of Dunn himself, which is that of the 
brilliant commercial swindler, the Eobert Law of these days, 
whose roguery is on a magnificent scale, is carefully drawn ; 
and Mr. Lever has certainly the merit of never allowing him- 
self to be tempted into conventional exaggeration of this 
character. Davenport Dunn is a rascal of genius, and 
throughout all his roguery he remains sufficiently human and 
natural (the good being never entirely obliterated by the evil 
in his complex character) to justify to the last the interest 
which his career excites in the mind of the reader. His 
ambition, before it comes in contact with distracting and 
debasing influences, is legitimate, and even noble ; and the 
gradual deterioration of a character whose powei’ is uncon- 
trolled by principle, is finely worked out. But the best and 
most powerful character in this book — a character in which 
Mr. Lever has shown, in addition to his ordinary knowledge 


24 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


of the world, no ordinary knowledge of human nature — is 
tiiat of Grog Davis, the professional “sporting swindler.” 
This man, a vulgar blackleg, and in all his dealings with 
society a most unmitigated scoundrel, nevertheless affects us 
with a sense of power, and secures from us a degree of 
interest wliich it would be impossible to feel for a character 
of which the delineation was less true to the deepest realities 
of nature. The whole conception of this character is, indeed, 
of the highest order. The one redeeming point in the much- 
defaced humanity of this man, and the secret of the strong 
dramatic interest which he excites, lies in his devoted and 
absorbing affection for his daughter. 

Whatever he has in him better than the fiend, or above the 
brute, is concentrated in this affection, of which the pathos 
is all the more poignant from the power of nature which it 
indicates, and the contrast which it suggests with the prosti- 
tution of that power in the habitual life of the man. The 
professional associations of Grog Davis with the turf and the 
fashionable gambling-houses of Europe, bring him into daily 
contact with the most worthless and demoralized members 
of the upper ranks of society. Their ambition to be knaves 
renders them only the dupes of a knavery more practised and 
audacious than their own ; and the contempt of the j)ro- 
fessional swindler for those who, though his superiors in 
social rank, are only his equals in infamy, and his inferiors in 
the dexterity which renders infamy partially profitable, is 
embittered by his haunting consciousness that they are by 
birthright the inheritors of what a man may desecrate but 
cannot transfer, and that the sphere from which they descend 
into connection with him is one into which, by no possible 
connection with them, is he able to elevate himself. His 
dreary and restricted experience teaches him that there is no 
moral degradation which men will not incur for the sake of 
money, and from this he argues to the conclusion that there 
is no social disability which may not be overcome by that all- 
powerful agent. He therefore labours to accumulate wealth 
dishonestly, in order that he ma}^ make his child rich enough 
to be honest. What matter though his own hands be soiled ? — 
hers shall be stainless ! What matter though he heap infamy 
on himself, if it be to bequeath to her the purity and inno- 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


25 


ceiice wliicli, tlie further it is removed from the depths of his 
own degradation, the more he delights to conteuiplate and 
revere in the future of his child ? The profligate gentlemen 
who are his boon companions may laugh away, in the course 
of a night’s debauch, the reputation of e^^ery duchess in 
England ; but where is he, so bold of tongue, or so sure of 
his pistol-practice, as shall dare to find a spot on the character 
of the daughter of tlie “ infamous Grog Davis? ’’ Whilst he, 
for her sake, is plotting nefarious plunder, in the company of 
• men whose presence is pollution, she, an innocent happy girl, 
in her convent at Brussels, shall be learning all that can refine 
and elevate life — the associate of spotless maidens, and the 
pupil of the most accomplished teachers that money can 
secure. And in all this notable scheme nothing is overlooked 
save that alone which involves the inevitable failure of it. 
It never occurs to the remarkable natural shrewdness of a 
man whose experience, however varied, is limited exclusively 
to evil, tliat in this world, where the consequences of evil are 
endless, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, 
and that, in the eye of society, the daughter of the “ infamous 
Grog Davis,” \vere she wise as Sheba, and pure as Ruth, 
can never be other than the cliiia of infamy, and the inheritor 
of shame. And so complete is his inability to realize or com- 
prehend any but social distinctions between right and wrong, 
that although there is no self-sacrifice of which he is not 
capable to secure the happiness of his child, and no barbarity 
in which he would scruple to indulge his vengeance on the 
man who should injure her, yet ho is himself a conspirator to 
sell her in marriage to the most abjectly worthless and con- 
temptible of all his infamous associates, simply because that 
ma]i is brother and heir to a peer of the realm. That the 
daughter of Grog Davis should bo a peeress, for this Grog 
Davis schemes to secure as his son-in-law a man whom he 
knows to be guilty of forgery, and whom he himself despises 
as a poltroon. This is the summit of his ambition. And 
how a theory of life which insults human nature is defeated 
by human nature itself ; how the human heart vindicates its 
inherent birthright to the control of its own destinies, and 
avenges upon itself the wrongs inflicted by itself upon its 
better aspirations ; how, out of the utter wreck, and failure of 


26 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVEB. 


all that unscrupulous ingenuity can devise for the attainment 
of unwortliy desires, arises at the last, in the mere might of 
man’s common instinct to be good, something which recon- 
ciles the fact of human sin to our faith in human nature, and 
seems to vindicate the hope of a distant but ultimate sal- 
vation, — is shadowed forth in the development and destiny 
of these two characters, with a masterly power and depth of 
insight which not unfrequently reminds us of Balzac. 

Before we pass from the consideration of this work, we 
may remark, as regards the entire conception of it, that con- 
siderable skill is evinced in the mechanism by which ^Ir. 
Lever contrives to show that every rogue is limited, in his 
power to do mischief, to the use, as it were, of a single engine^ 
and that he who assails honest men with one kind of weapon 
is liable to be himself overthrown by his ignorance of the 
fence peculiar to some other species of rascality. Thus, for 
instance, the amateur blackguard Annesley Beecher, is no 
match for the professional blackleg Grog Davis ; and Grog 
Davis, in turn, with all his craft and audacity, is no match 
against the more astute tactics of Davenport Dunn, the re- 
fined and comprehensive rascal ; whilst even Dunn is over- 
reached at last by the combined common -sense of the honest 
portion of society ; so that, with this species of vermin, as 
with all others, the rhyme holds good, that 

“ Greater fleas have little fleas, 

Upon their legs to bite ’em ; 

And little fleas have lesser fleas, 

And so ad infinitum.'** 

There are some admirable characters in Mr. Lever’s last 
novel. Mrs. Penthony Morris is excellent. So, in another 
way, is Mr. Ogden, the bully of a public office, the sycox^hant 
of secretaries of state, and the tyrant of junior clerks, the 
pedant of Downing Street, and the bore of all society. There 
is nothing more delightful than to see a bully cowed ; and 
the absolute terror and anguish of Ogden when he unex- 
pectedly encounters, on the Continent, the fascinating wife 
from whom he has been divorced, the groan of positive pain 
into which his i)ompous com]3liment is suddeidy converted 
by a single glance at the person for whom it was destined 


THE WOKKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


27 


i, 


with the most approved conventional gallantr}", is inimitable^ 
There is something even which claims our sympathy in the 
capacity for common human suffering thus revealed beneath 
all the small formalities of the man. Layton, the lost man of 
genius, is of a higher range, and there is considerable power, 
and not a little pathos, in Mr. Lever’s vigorous sketch of this^ 
character. But, perhaps, the best-sustained character in the 
book is that of the Yankee, Leonidas Shaven Quakenboss, 

In the delineation of this character Mr. Lever has evinced 
one merit, for which, perhaps, he can hardly hope to receive 
due appreciation from the majority of readers. Quakenboss- 
is, so far as we know, almost the only Yankee of English 
manufacture in whose figures of speech the purely Yankeo 
idiom, peculiar to the New England States, is not constantly 
confounded with the slang of the South and West. Mr. 
Lever is also deserving of approval for not having allowed the 
merely ludicrous in a subject so obviously open to coarse 
caricature, to overpower his finer perception of what are the 
better and worthier qualities of the Yankee character. In 
this respect, however, he has been anticipated by Sir E* 
Lytton. 

There is certainly no lack of power in Mr. Lever’s later 
novels. On the contrary, they contain writing of great 
power, and evince qualities wdiich belong to a genius of a 
higher order than we discover in his earlier, and still, perhaps,, 
more popular books. Had he never written anything but the- 
‘Dodd Famil}",’ that work alone w’-ould have entitled him to- 
take undisputed rank among the humorists of England ; and 
had that work been the first of a hitherto unknown wi-iter^, 
the sensation it would have excited must have been very 
great. But familiarity, if it does not breed contempt, often 
induces indifference. If Aristides had taken to rope-dancing, 
perhaps he w^ould not have been ostracised by the Athenians^ 
Popularity is an alms which, the more cheerfully it is^ 
accorded to a first appeal, the more churlishly is it conceded 
to a second from the same quarter. When we see a boy 
in the street standing on his head, if we are in a good 
humour w^e fling him a penny, but the next time we see hicn 
turning a somersault, we only say, “ There’s that boy again ! 
and button up our pockets. Still, there are undoubtedly 


28 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


drawbacks to tlie claim of Mr. Lever s later works on general 
sympathy and approval for which he is himself responsible ; 
and we have reserved to the last the few remarks which 
we have to make of an unfavourable nature in reference 
to these works, because the cordial recognition which we have 
already expressed of their author’s ability will be the best 
guarantee for our sincerity in objecting to the subjects on 
which that ability is sometimes exercised. There is a same- 
ness of subject about the majority of Mr. Lever’s younger 
novels which is partly counterbalanced by the fact that such 
sameness lies at least within the sphere of a more or less 
national interest, such as the portraiture of Irish life. But 
the continued repetition of scones representative of a kind of 
society which is neither familiar nor pleasing to a large 
class of English readers, which is the characteristic of nearly 
all Mr. Lever’s later works, is under any circumstances a mis- 
take. The frivolity of Continental society, the vulgarity and 
mistakes of English travellers abroad, and the tricks and 
deceptions of sharpers and adventurers, is a very legitimate 
subject for satire ; but it has really been exhausted with 
great success in the ‘Dodd Family,’ and we regret to see 
it enter so largely into the staple material of Mr. Lever’s 
subsequent novels. However excellent may be the cookerj^, 
and skilful the arrangement of the dishes, we object to 
continual invitations to dine off the leavings of any feast, 
however good ; it is not hospitalit}^, but thrift, which would 
force us to drain the last flagon and swallow the last crumb. 

“ The funeral baked meats 
But coldly furnish forth the marriage-feast.” 

In such 'works as ‘ Davenport Dunn,’ and One of Them,’ 
the genius of the author carries everything before it. But 
the subject of such a story as ‘ The Daltons ’ can, 'we should 
think, have little interest for the mass of the public. We 
need not defend these remarks from the imputation of a false 
and vulgar morality which would exclude from fiction its 
legitimate sources of interest in the delineation of crime and 
the analysis of evil. Nothing in human nature can be alien 
to art, w^hich derives from nature all its materials. All we 
ask h orn an author is to preserve the balance and proportion 


THE WORKS OF CHARLES LEVER. 


29 


of the emotions to which he appeals. To be continually 
poring over the blots and failures of humanity, or the vices 
and corruption of any social state, is neither profitable nor 
pleasant. And the perusal of a series of fictions which 
present to us only the deformities of nature, and detain us 
without relief or intermission in the society of sharpers and 
vagabonds, and all manner of vicious or vulgar persons, 
becomes fatiguing and painful. As we close one after the 
other of such books, we feel like men returning from a hell. 
Our gains are not equivalent to the unpleasurable process of 
their acquirement, and we long for some more wholesome 
intercourse with mankind. The highest and most truthful 
art must occasionally hold intercourse with evil, but it is a 
mistake in art to make that intercourse habitual. When an 
aTithor continually presents to our view one side only, either 
of society or of man’s heart, and that the most unpleasant of 
all, he appears to imply — not that this is to be found in 
society or human nature, and is worth looking at — but that 
nothing else is to be found in society or human nature, and 
that this is 'worth looking at ; and we revolt from acqui 
escence in any such view of a cause which is, after all, our 
own. Our estimation of the genius of Le 'Sage would be 
much lower if he had written half-a-dozen small ‘ Gil Bias ; 
and if Fielding had -wnitten many ‘Jonathan Wilds,’ we 
should be disposed to think less highly of the mind that 
made ‘Tom Jones.’ We attribute this defect to what is, 
perhaps, in itself a conscientious quality. We think that 
Mr. Lever is apt to be content to draw his materials for 
fiction too exclusively from observation. Human nature is 
indeed inexhaustible, but no one man’s observation of human 
nature can be so. The widest experience is limited, and the 
limit of it must be reached at last. There is only one inex- 
haustible source for fiction, and that is the Imagination. 

But the imagination itself is an engine which cannot be 
kept in frequent operation without being frequently supplied 
with fuel. It cannot act without being first acted upon. And 
the fault we are inclined to attribute to the majority of our 
modern writers of romance is, that they give out too much 
and take in too little. Let men say what they will about 
native originality, man is not really a creator. He changes, 


^0 


THE WOllKS CP CHARLES LEVER. 


improves, and extends, that is all. Ex nihilo nihil ht ; and 
the best new ideas are the product of a large accumulation 
of old ones. Those authors who rely chiefly upon personal 
observation and experience for the materials of fiction, cannot 
be too careful to vary their point of sight pretty often. 
Every imaginative writer must at some period have experienced 
the feelings expressed by Cowley, when he wrote — 

‘‘The fields which sprang beneath the ancient plough, 

Spent and outworn, return no harvest now, 

And we must die of want, 

Unless new lands we plant.” 

If Mr. Lever is disposed to dispute the justice of these ob- 
oervations, or, at any rate, their special application to himself, 
he may certainly refer to the extraordinary sameness of a vast 
number of his contemporary novelists, who do not seem, on that 
.account, to enjoy less popularity. One set of writers can talk of 
nothing but governesses, tutors, and athletic curates, who love 
fly-fishing and abhor Strauss. The domestic novel happens 
lo be in fashion, and we certainly have enough of it. Others 
are never happy out of the precincts of Pall- Mall and the 
clubs, unless it be at a fashionable watering-place ; and some 
can give no flavour to English fiction without importing it from 
Florence or Rome, or borrowing their intrigue from the secret 
societies, and their sentiment from Mazzinian manifestoes. 
But Mr. Lever is immeasurably richer in imagination and 
power than all such writers ; and if he would occasionally 
emigrate to fresh fields and pastures new,” he has already 
all that is needful in the way of stock and capital. He may 
be contented with his present reputation, which is exten- 
;sive and likely to be permanent ; but we believe that it is in 
his own power to elevate and enlarge it. 

“ Count no man happy till he has ceased to live,” says the 
<jreek proverb. Sum up the attributes of no genius till 
it has ceased to act or to write. The last -work of an author 
tnay sometimes be the first which gives a just idea of his 
fiiiind as a whole. 


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LONDON : 

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 


CHARLES LEVER’S WORKS. 


EI>IT10IV. 

WITH COVERS BY H. K. BROWNE (PHIZ). 
Handsomelt Feinted in Small Crown Octato. 

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LOKDON : CHAPKIAM & HALL, !93, PICCADILLY. 

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